Opinion ID: 2084452
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: Daniel Nicini (F-3)

Text: Co-defendant Thomas Felmey III devised a plan to rob a sixty-seven-year-old homosexual man. Felmey told Nicini to pretend to be homosexual and allow the man to pick him up. Felmey said that Nicini and the man should go to the nearby game preserve, where Nicini should blindfold him, rob him, and leave him in the trunk of his car. A few weeks later, Felmey drove Nicini to the location where the victim sat in his car. Nicini approached him, and the two men went to the game preserve. The victim grabbed Nicini's testicles and buttocks. Nicini pointed a toy gun at him, and a struggle ensued. Nicini punched the victim and stole his money, wallet, and keys. Felmey drove by in his car as Nicini was putting the victim into the victim's car trunk. The victim recognized Felmey and said he knew that Felmey was involved with the robbery. Felmey and Nicini each drove to Felmey's home. Felmey told Nicini to take the victim to the woods and kill him because the victim had identified him. Nicini, Felmey, and two women drove the victim to an isolated dirt road. Felmey told Nicini to abandon the car on a trail in the woods. Nicini drove further into the woods and opened the trunk, which he propped open with a stick. Upon observing that the victim was holding a crowbar and a knife, Nicini removed the stick and caused the trunk to hit the victim on the head. Nicini then pulled the victim out of the trunk, tied the victim's hands behind his back, and tied a rope around his neck. Nicini looped the rope around a tree branch and attempted to hang the victim. The rope broke, and the victim fell. Nicini tied the rope to the front bumper and made the victim walk with the car. Nicini would help the victim up whenever he fell. Next, Nicini, dragging the victim, drove the car in reverse at a high rate of speed. Nicini cut the rope and left the victim in the woods, where hunters discovered his dead body over one week later. A subsequent autopsy revealed that the victim died of ligature strangulation and suffocation. After the murder, Nicini washed the victim's automobile at a car wash and left the vehicle in front of the victim's home. The following day, Felmey drew a map of the victim's home that illustrated the location of the victim's money, guns, and drugs. Nicini stole $320, a .22 rifle, and miscellaneous other items. On the day hunters found the victim's body, police apprehended Felmey and Nicini, both of whom confessed. Nicini was a nineteen-year-old unemployed high-school dropout who had once worked at a fast-food restaurant. He had no prior adult criminal record. He had used alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine and said he drank a case of beer about one hour before commencing the crimes. The State did not capitally prosecute Nicini, and he pled guilty to felony murder and burglary. The court sentenced him to life imprisonment plus five years with a thirty-three-year parole disqualifier. J. Kenneth Querns [1] Querns kidnapped and strangled a nine-year-old girl. He saw her outside of her home, and took her in his car to his home, where he kept her for four to five hours. He eventually took her out in his car and strangled her. Her body was subsequently found in a vacant field. She had two stab wounds to the neck, and was not wearing underpants beneath her one-piece outfit. There was no evidence of sexual penetration, and Querns denied sexually assaulting her. Querns was an alcoholic, and he claimed that he was intoxicated at the time of the crime. During his childhood, he was physically and emotionally abused by his mother, sexually abused by his Sunday School teacher, and was often exposed to drug and alcohol abuse, as well as sexual activity. He had a prior conviction for sexual assault, as well as two harassment convictions for making obscene telephone calls to young girls. Querns pled guilty to aggravated manslaughter and kidnapping. The court sentenced him to an aggregate forty-five year prison term. LONG, J., dissenting. Megan Nicole Kanka is frozen in our collective consciousness because of her beauty, her innocence and the horrific way in which she died. She is remembered as well because of the stalwart efforts of her parents who spearheaded the enactment of Megan's Law in an effort to save other children from their daughter's fate. To trivialize, even obliquely, the crime against Megan Kanka would be unspeakable. Indeed any normal heart responds with a cry for vengeance when faced with an offense like this. But it is precisely in matters such as the one before us that we must set aside our deepest emotions and plumb the depths of our core of rationality in order to account for our stewardship. That stewardship entails the task of proportionality reviewa unique exercise in our law. Unlike direct review, proportionality review does not question whether an individual death sentence is justified by the facts and circumstances of the case or whether, in the abstract, the sentence imposed on a defendant is deserved on a moral level. On the contrary, its role is to place the sentence imposed for one terrible murder on a continuum of sentences imposed for other terrible murders to ensure that the defendant has not been `singled out unfairly for capital punishment.' State v. Cooper, 159 N.J. 55, 88, 731 A. 2d 1000 (1999) ( Cooper II ) (citing to State v. Martini, 139 N.J. 3, 47, 651 A. 2d 949 (1994) ( Martini II) ), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 875, 116 S.Ct. 203, 133 L.Ed. 2d 137 (1995) When that very particularized assignment is undertaken in the bright light of reason, it is evident that Jesse Timmendequas should not have been condemned to death.