Opinion ID: 865182
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: constitutionality of the felonious abuse of a

Text: CHILD AGGRAVATING FACTOR ¶41. This Court addressed on direct appeal whether it was appropriate for the jury to consider the felonious abuse of a child aggravating factor: Here, Brawner shot his daughter's grandmother as his daughter watched, then shot his daughter's mother as she watched. He again shot both the grandmother and the mother two additional times, all as Paige looked on. He then shot his daughter twice. Shooting Paige fits the description of felony child abuse in that it is a strike to the child in a manner as to cause serious bodily harm. Therefore, we reject Brawner's assertion that the killing of Paige Brawner was not capital murder. Brawner, 872 So. 2d at 16. Now on post-conviction Brawner asserts that our death penalty statute, as applied to felonious child abuse, is unconstitutional. He claims that when reading Miss. Code Ann. Section 95-5-39(2)(c) (felonious child abuse) in conjunction with Miss. 19 Code Ann. Section 97-3-19(2)(f) (capital murder) the result is an automatic implication of a capital crime regardless of how or in what manner the child suffers death. ¶42. This issue could have been raised on direct appeal and it was not. Therefore, it is procedurally barred. However, without raising the procedural bar, since Brawner challenges the constitutionality of our capital murder regime, we address the merits. This Court found in Stevens v. State, 806 So. 2d 1031, 1044 (Miss. 2001) that the Legislature intended under Miss. Code Ann. Section 95-5-39(2)(c) that the intentional act of murdering a child, no matter the manner in which it was performed, constitutes felonious abuse of a child under Miss. Code Ann. Section 97-3-19(2)(f). It is the Legislature’s prerogative to define crimes and set punishments as long as they remain within the limits of the United States Constitution and our own. Id. In that regard, we found that the Legislature intended that there need be only one act to constitute capital murder by felonious abuse of a child. Id. (citing Brown v. State, 690 So. 2d 276, 291 (Miss. 1996)). ¶43. Previously a defendant in Faraga v. State, 514 So. 2d 295 (Miss. 1987), assailed the constitutionality of our capital murder statute by raising an identical argument. In Faraga this Court found that upon reading the statutes in conjunction that they were constitutional. Faraga, 514 So. 2d at 302. As it was in Faraga, Brawner’s argument is without merit. 20