Opinion ID: 1857482
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: timeliness of proceedings

Text: The first appellate claim asserts that Moore should be summarily sentenced to life imprisonment because the state failed to comply with the order of the eighth circuit court of appeals which required commencement of sentencing hearing within 60 days. As noted previously, the order in question was actually issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska, not the Eighth Circuit. But there is no question that the order required that Moore's death sentences be reduced to life imprisonment unless the State initiated capital resentencing proceedings within 60 days. The State filed its motion for resentencing with this court well within the 60-day period. Nonetheless, Moore, relying on Reeves v. Hopkins, 871 F.Supp. 1182 (D.Neb.1994), argues that as the district court is the only state court with resentencing authority, we lacked constitutional or statutory authority to reweigh the aggravating and mitigating circumstances and resentence him, and, thus, the motion the State filed with us was a nullity. Based on the holding in Rust v. Hopkins, 984 F.2d 1486 (8th Cir.1993), cert. denied 508 U.S. 967, 113 S.Ct. 2950, 124 L.Ed.2d 697, the federal district court in Reeves concluded that Nebraska law provides for a two-tiered sentencing process in death penalty cases and that defendants have a federally protected liberty interest in such a procedure. However, as a federal decision interpreting Nebraska law, Reeves is simply not controlling. This court is the final arbiter of Nebraska law, not the federal courts. In addition, the federal district court's decision in Reeves v. Hopkins, 871 F.Supp. 1182 (D.Neb.1994), was recently reversed in part in Reeves v. Hopkins, 76 F.3d 1424 (8th Cir.1996). In that case, the Eighth Circuit ruled that in Reeves v. Hopkins, 871 F.Supp. 1182 (D.Neb.1994), the federal district court exceeded its authority when it decided to reject this court's interpretation of Nebraska law concerning our authority to reweigh the aggravating and mitigating circumstances. The Eighth Circuit also ruled that the federal district court had misinterpreted Rust, supra, noting that Rust concerned a very limited and unique situation wherein a death sentence had been imposed under a wrong and too lenient burden of proof. Rust held that this court's attempt to cure that grave error by applying the beyond a reasonable doubt burden on direct appeal violated due process because Rust was entitled to have a three-judge panel find the relevant facts and impose his sentence in the first instance. In Reeves v. Hopkins, 76 F.3d 1424 (8th Cir. 1996), the Eighth Circuit drew a distinction between cases in which the proceedings were entirely void, such as in Rust, and those involving a nonvoiding error, such as the improper consideration of an invalid aggravating circumstance, writing that [a state] appellate court is fully competent to `cure' some sentencing deficiencies in capital cases. Rust, 984 F.2d at 1493. We explained that Clemons applied to minor errors such as improper consideration of an invalid aggravating circumstance, but not to entirely void sentencings requiring completely new factfindings. Id. at 1493-95. Nowhere in Rust did we intimate that Nebraska could not, consistent with due process, reweigh aggravating and mitigating circumstances to cure minor sentencing errors such as those in issue in Clemons. Nor did we intimate, as indeed in view of Clemons we could not, that such reweighing would amount to a deprivation of a defendant's right to appeal his sentence. As we have stated in other cases, whether the Nebraska Supreme Court will engage, or has the authority to engage, in reweighing in circumstances similar to those presented in Clemons is a question of state law which only it can decide. See Moore v. Clarke, 951 F.2d 895, 897 (8th Cir.1991), cert. denied, 504 U.S. 930, 112 S.Ct. 1995, 118 L.Ed.2d 591 (1992); Harper v. Grammer, 895 F.2d 473, 480 (8th Cir.1990). 76 F.3d at 1428-29. Therefore, for nonvoiding errors such as the improper consideration of an invalid aggravating circumstance, there is no federal bar to appellate reweighing. In such a situation, the question is one of state law. As permitted by federal law, Clemons v. Mississippi, 494 U.S. 738, 110 S.Ct. 1441, 108 L.Ed.2d 725 (1990), under Nebraska law, a death sentence tainted by the improper application of an aggravating factor may be constitutionally cured by our reweighing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances involved. State v. Reeves, 239 Neb. 419, 476 N.W.2d 829 (1991), cert. denied 506 U.S. 837, 113 S.Ct. 114, 121 L.Ed.2d 71 (1992). See, also, State v. Moore, 243 Neb. 679, 502 N.W.2d 227 (1993). Consequently, it was entirely proper for the State to petition this court to intervene and reweigh the aggravating and mitigating circumstances in this case. The fact that we chose not to exercise that power does not mean that the State did not initiate resentencing proceedings within the 60 days ordered by the U.S. District Court. That being so, the first appellate claim fails.