Opinion ID: 1847325
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: because robbery was an element of the offense of capital murder, its additional use as an aggravating circumstance was impermissibly duplicative and contravened the narrowing requirement of the eighth amendment to the united states constitution.

Text: ś 62. Jerome asserts that the trial court erred in allowing the State to use the aggravating circumstance of a murder committed during the course of an armed robbery. He argues that the use of the felonymurder aggravating circumstance in a felony-murder case is impermissibly duplicative, and in violation of the narrowing requirement of the Eight Amendment to the United States Constitution. Jerome cites to State v. Middlebrooks, 840 S.W.2d 317 (Tenn.1992); Engberg v. Meyer, 820 P.2d 70, 87 (Wyo. 1991); Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972); and Arave v. Creech, 507 U.S. 463, 113 S.Ct. 1534, 123 L.Ed.2d 188 (1993). ś 63. This so-called doubling up argument, which states that the use of the robbery aggravating circumstance in a robberymurder case, does not genuinely narrow the class of defendants eligible for the death penalty, has consistently been rejected by this Court. See Ballenger, 667 So.2d at 1260-61; Pinkney v. State, 538 So.2d 329, 358-59 (Miss.1988), vacated on other grounds, 494 U.S. 1075, 110 S.Ct. 1800, 108 L.Ed.2d 931 (1990); Jones v. State, 517 So.2d 1295, 1300 (Miss.1987), vacated on other grounds, 487 U.S. 1230, 108 S.Ct. 2891, 101 L.Ed.2d 925 (1988) overruled on other grounds by Willie v. State, 585 So.2d 660 (Miss.1991). In Ballenger, the Court stated, [t]he `narrowing' of the class of death eligible offenders has been done legislatively in Mississippi under Miss.Code Ann. § 97-3-19(2) (1972 & Supp.1994). Ballenger, 667 So.2d at 1261. See also Lowenfield v. Phelps, 484 U.S. 231, 108 S.Ct. 546, 98 L.Ed.2d 568 (1988). This issue is without merit.