Opinion ID: 1659460
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: sentencing and proportionality analysis

Text: We also believe that, regardless of the unconstitutionality of Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-2-202(a)(2) (Supp. 1988), the sentence of death imposed upon Hale in this case must be reversed because such a punishment is disproportionate to the crime on which the jury was charged. Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-206(c)(1)(D) (1991), provides that this Court shall determine whether [t]he sentence of death is excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the nature of the crime and the defendant. In prior cases, the Tennessee Supreme Court has upheld death penalties as proportionate punishments in cases involving premeditated murder, see, e.g., State v. McCormick, 778 S.W.2d 48 (Tenn. 1989), U.S. cert. denied 494 U.S. 1039, 110 S.Ct. 1503, 108 L.Ed.2d 638 (1990), and in cases involving murder committed during the perpetration of a felony, see, e.g., State v. Goad, 707 S.W.2d 846 (Tenn. 1986). Under Tennessee's post-1977 death penalty statutes, however, we have never approved the imposition of a sentence of death for a murder committed during the perpetration of a misdemeanor. In fact, a death resulting from the commission of a misdemeanor is generally not even considered murder. In Tennessee, prior to the legislative adoption of the 1988 amendment to Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-2-202 that created the capital crime of child abuse murder, any violation of a statute resulting in death generally constituted involuntary manslaughter if the violation of the statute [was] the proximate cause of death. Brown v. State, 201 Tenn. (5 McCanless) 50, 53, 296 S.W.2d 848, 849 (1956); Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-2-221 (now Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-212, proscribing criminally negligent homicide); 41 C.J.S. Homicide, § 309 (1991). Of course, [t]he power to define what shall constitute a criminal offense is committed to the discretion of the legislature, subject to constitutional limitation and safeguards... . Hall v. State, 151 Tenn. (24 Thompson) 416, 418, 270 S.W. 84, 85 (1925). However, a capital sentencing scheme must ... provide a `meaningful basis for distinguishing the few cases in which [the death penalty] is imposed from the many cases in which it is not.' Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420, 427, 100 S.Ct. 1759, 1764, 64 L.Ed.2d 398 (1980) (citations omitted); State v. Barber, 753 S.W.2d 659, 667 (Tenn. 1988), U.S. cert. denied, 488 U.S. 900, 109 S.Ct. 248, 102 L.Ed.2d 236 (1988). The provisions of the 1988 amendment to the first-degree murder statute, Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-2-202(a)(2) (Supp. 1988), do not provide such a meaningful basis. In fact, that statute would allow a jury to consider imposing the death penalty upon an individual who, in the process of administering corporal punishment, inadvertently causes the death of the child by an intentional, inappropriate, but not especially violent, blow to the child's body ten years after similarly striking the child. In this case, the jury determined that Hale's inexcusable and reprehensible treatment of Michael Maupin resulted in the child's tragic death. Under Tennessee's child abuse murder statute, however, the jury was not required to find that the killing was premeditated, deliberated, intended, or even that the circumstances surrounding the homicide manifested an extreme indifference to the value of human life. In effect, therefore, Hale became subject to execution solely on the basis of the commission of a misdemeanor that, regrettably, resulted in the death of another. Because other killings resulting from the commissions of misdemeanors are classified only as manslaughter, death eligibility under the provisions of Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-2-202(a)(2) (Supp. 1988) is constitutionally disproportionate punishment violative of Article I, § 16 of the Tennessee Constitution. [8]