Opinion ID: 1960299
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 19

Heading: frank pennington

Text: Pennington arrived at a bar in East Rutherford, New Jersey at about 11:30 p.m. on September 2, 1986. Thirty minutes later, the victim, Arlene Connor, arrived to help her daughter close the bar. Connor announced closing time at about 1:00 a.m. Pennington asked for a beer, his fourth, and went to the men's room. The other customers had left by the time Pennington returned to the bar. Pennington shot Connor once in the heart, killing her. In a statement to the police, Pennington conceded that he had pulled out a gun, told the victim he did not want to hurt anyone, and that he just wanted money. When Connor threw a glass that hit him in the chest, he ducked, straightened up, and pulled the trigger. The State alleged two aggravating factors: c(4)(a), prior murder conviction; and c(4)(g), murder while engaged in a contemporaneous felony. Pennington alleged three mitigating factors: c(5)(a), extreme emotional disturbance; c(5)(d), mental disease or defect; and c(5)(h), the catch-all factor. He presented the testimony of various family members, who asserted that his mother was immature, promiscuous, bad tempered, and had not properly raised him. For example, she had taught him to steal cigarettes for her. His mother testified that Pennington's father was an alcoholic who had beaten her and Pennington. Furthermore, in 1968 Pennington enlisted in the Marine Corps and served in Vietnam. Medical testimony indicated that Pennington suffered from multiple-personality disorder, and that after he had returned home from Vietnam he had suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome. He also was an alcoholic and had suffered a brain injury. Finding both aggravating factors and the mental-disease-or-defect mitigating factor, the jury sentenced Pennington to death. Pennington, supra, 119 N.J. at 557-60, 575 A. 2d 816. This Court reversed the sentence because the trial court had failed to require the jury to determine whether Pennington had intended to cause death rather than just serious bodily injury, a Gerald error. Id. at 561, 575 A. 2d 816. Pennington received a life sentence in the re-sentencing trial.