Opinion ID: 2156968
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Salient Factors

Text: Robert Morton's own case is included in the salient factor statistics. For the reasons discussed in Feaster, supra, 165 N.J. at 458, 757 A. 2d 266 (Long, J., dissenting), Morton's death sentence should not confirm its own propriety. Marshall II, supra, 130 N.J. at 263, 613 A. 2d 1059 (Handler, J., dissenting). Equally troubling is the fact that one of the death sentenced F-2 cases included in Morton's category is that of Richard Feaster whose case the Court decided today. It is incomprehensible to me that the Court can use Feaster's sentence to justify Morton's and Morton's to justify Feaster's. Excluding Morton's own case under the salient-factors test, thirteen percent of death-eligible cases in the F-2 category resulted in the death penalty, compared to eleven percent overall. Excluding both Feaster and Morton, as I believe we should, the death sentencing rate among all death-eligible cases in the F-2 subcategory is only about ten percent, and the death sentencing rate for those proceeding to the penalty phase is only nineteen percent. Given that no death sentence other than Morton's has been fully upheld (except Feaster's which the Court upholds today), we cannot conclude from the salient-factors test that there is a societal consensus that the death penalty is an appropriate penalty for F-2 defendants. See State v. Cooper, 159 N.J. 55, 72, 731 A. 2d 1000 (1999) ( Cooper II ).