Opinion ID: 769328
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Improper Aggravating Factors

Text: 41 Paul next argues that the statutory heinous, cruel or depraved and the victim vulnerability factors are vague, and that several non-statutory factors are also vague. 9 The heinous, cruel and depraved instruction was given with a limiting instruction extensively defining those three terms. With such an extensive limiting instruction, we find that this statutory aggravating factor is constitutional. See United States v. Hall, 152 F.3d 381, 414 (5th Cir. 1998), abrogated on other grounds by United States v. Martinez-Salazar, 120 S. Ct. 774, 782 (2000). In fact, the instruction given by the district court in this regard was nearly identical to the instruction given in Hall. We have considered Paul's remaining arguments regarding aggravating factors and find no unconstitutional vagueness. 42 Paul also alleges the heinous, cruel and depraved factor and the vulnerability of the victim factor are duplicative of one another because they allow a jury to find two separate factors from identical facts. Each of these factors is directed to entirely distinct aspects or components of the offense, i.e. one factor addresses the quality of Paul's violence while the other factor speaks to the frailty of the victim, and therefore, we find the factors are not duplicative. We find that the evidence of the beating, which includes the fact that Paul and Ingle followed Williams as he set off into the park for a walk, and then beat him severely enough to almost knock his eye out of its socket, is sufficiently heinous, cruel and depraved, whatever the age of the victim. Because Williams was eighty-two years old and less physically able to resist his attackers, the jury could additionally find the vulnerability of the victim to be an aggravating factor separate from the heinous, cruel and depraved nature of the crime. Accordingly, we find no error.