Opinion ID: 1060577
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Sufficiency of the EvidenceAggravating Circumstance (i)(5)

Text: The defendant next claims that the proof is not sufficient to support the jury's finding that [t]he murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel in that it involved torture or serious physical abuse beyond that necessary to produce death. Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-204(i)(5). In response, the State says that the proof, considered in the light most favorable to the prosecution, supports the jury's finding of this aggravating circumstance. In determining whether the evidence supports a jury's finding of a statutory aggravating circumstance, the proper inquiry for an appellate court is whether, after reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, a rational trier of fact could have found the existence of the aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt. See State v. Carter, 988 S.W.2d 145, 150 (Tenn.1999). This Court has previously held that torture means the infliction of severe physical or mental pain upon the victim while he or she remains alive and conscious. State v. Pike, 978 S.W.2d 904, 917 (Tenn.1998); State v. Williams, 690 S.W.2d 517, 529 (Tenn.1985). With respect to serious physical abuse beyond that necessary to produce death, we have previously explained that serious alludes to a matter of degree, and that the physical, rather than mental, abuse must be beyond that or more than what is necessary to produce death. See State v. Nesbit, 978 S.W.2d 872, 887 (Tenn.1998); State v. Odom, 928 S.W.2d 18, 26 (Tenn.1996). This aggravating circumstance may be applied if the evidence is sufficient to support either torture or serious physical abuse beyond that necessary to produce death. See State v. Hines, 919 S.W.2d 573, 587 (Tenn.1995) (... review of the record establishes, this aggravating circumstance was sufficiently proved by evidence of torture independent of depravity.); State v. Van Tran, 864 S.W.2d 465, 478 (Tenn.1993) (holding that trial court did not err in charging only that portion of the aggravating circumstance which was supported by the proof because the aggravating circumstance is written in the disjunctive and may be found if either torture or depravity of mind is established); State v. O'Guinn, 709 S.W.2d 561, 567 (Tenn.1986) (Although a murder victim must be alive in order to be tortured, a victim need not have been alive in order to demonstrate the perpetrator's depravity of mind....); State v. Williams, 690 S.W.2d 517, 529-30 (Tenn.1985) (However, we hold that `depravity of mind' may, in some circumstances, be shown although torture, as hereinabove defined, did not occur.). See also State v. Soto-Fong, 187 Ariz. 186, 928 P.2d 610, 626 (1996) (stating that proof beyond a reasonable doubt of any one of the three components of the aggravating circumstance, cruelty, heinousness, or depravity, is sufficient to support a finding of the aggravating circumstance); State v. Bjorklund, 258 Neb. 432, 604 N.W.2d 169, 215 (2000) (stating that the aggravating circumstance, the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, cruel or manifested exceptional depravity by ordinary standards of morality and intelligence, contained two separate disjunctive components which may operate together or independently of one another); Byford v. State, 994 P.2d 700, 716 (Nev.2000) (stating that establishing either torture or mutilation is sufficient to support the jury's finding of the aggravating circumstance); Goins v. Commonwealth, 251 Va. 442, 470 S.E.2d 114, 130 (1996) (stating that proof of any one of the three statutory components, torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim, will support a finding of the aggravating circumstance). Considering the proof in this record in a light most favorable to the prosecution, we conclude that the evidence is sufficient to support a finding of both torture and serious physical abuse beyond that necessary to produce death. In this case, the defendant attacked the victim with a knife and inflicted twelve major wounds on the victim. The medical testimony indicated that the victim was alive when all the wounds were inflicted and that none of the major wounds, either individually or collectively, would have caused the victim to lose consciousness immediately. Indeed, Dr. Elkins testified that the victim would have bled to death in approximately ten to fifteen minutes and would have lost consciousness in approximately five to eleven minutes, depending upon whether pressure was applied to the wound. Witnesses to the attack also testified that the victim was alive and conscious at the time the wounds were inflicted and for sometime thereafter. Witnesses testified that the victim was screaming and warning her daughter to stay back during the attack. Moreover, the victim had defensive wounds on her hands, suggesting that she was conscious during the attack and attempting to protect herself. Shortly after the attack ended, witnesses heard the victim complain that she was choking. When the victim attempted to move her head so she could breathe, witnesses saw the slash wounds on her neck gape open and heard the victim gurgling blood. Finally, witnesses said the victim was still attempting to move when she was placed in the ambulance, and one witness testified that she both observed the victim reach out her hand and heard the victim call her daughter's name as she was being loaded into the ambulance. Considered in the light most favorable to the prosecution, this evidence is certainly sufficient to establish torture, i.e., the infliction of severe physical or mental pain upon the victim while she remained alive and conscious. Moreover, we agree with the Court of Criminal Appeals that the evidence in this record is sufficient to support the jury's finding of serious physical abuse beyond that necessary to produce death. Dr. Elkins testified that the cause of death was the slash wound to the right side of the victim's neck. Dr. Elkins also testified, however, that the other wounds would have eventually produced death had the victim not been given timely medical attention. As the Court of Criminal Appeals concluded, the evidence is sufficient to support the jury's finding that the brutal physical attack upon the victim was excessive and far beyond that necessary to produce death. Accordingly, we conclude that the evidence is sufficient to support the jury's determination that the [t]he murder was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel in that it involved torture or serious physical abuse beyond that necessary to produce death.