Opinion ID: 2277244
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Aggravating Factor c(4)(c)

Text: In the penalty phase, the State relied on a solitary aggravating factor, Section c(4)(c). The State relied solely on the evidence produced during the guilt phase, and did not introduce any additional evidence at the penalty phase hearing. As previously indicated, the defendant offered expert testimony to support his argument that he was under extreme mental or emotional disturbance, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(a), as well as his own testimony and that of members of his family to establish his devotion to them and his reliability as a worker under the catch-all factor, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(h). In his summation, the prosecutor argued that the evidence of twenty-four stab wounds was sufficient to support the existence of aggravating factor c(4)(c): Now, torture is a subjective thing. Terror, pain, suffering. But we have objective evidence, indicia of it here, don't we? In the description of the crime scene, the blood-spattered walls, the bloody trail leading from one end of the apartment to the other. The pictures of Mr. Lawson and what was done to him. The testimony of the Medical Examiner as to the wounds. And don't we have the evidence of the terror in a man running for his life through his own home, humble as it may be? The terror of a man already dead, already fatally wounded in the chest? Yet somehow running for his life through his own home with James Hunt slashing at him? Don't we have the terror of a man sitting there slumped in his bathroom watching his own blood ooze out of him? Pain and suffering. Don't we have evidence of the pain and the suffering caused by 24 stab wounds? Some superficial but superficial is after all a medical term to Mr. Lawson. They hurt. They cause bleeding. They have to have caused terror. Torture is subjective. But we have torture on an aggravated battery. And don't we have, ladies and gentlemen, proof beyond any doubt of not one but 24 aggravated batteries? Take out the one wound that in and of itself of the many would have caused his death. Don't we have proof beyond any doubt of numerous aggravated batteries? And the statute requires an especially vicious crime because of torture or an aggravated battery. The trial court charged the jury on the section c(4)(c) factor as follows: For the purpose of this case you may only consider whether the following alleged aggravating factor exists. The reason I say that is because the State is only proceeding on one aggravating factor. That factor is as follows: that the murder was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that it involved torture or an aggravated battery to the victim. The victim in this case, of course, was Stoney Lawson.         The prosecution is not proceeding on that particular theory of depraved mind or that the attack was so savagely brutal or outrageously cruel and violent that in your minds the words or phrases wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman are justified. As previously indicated, the jury found that aggravating factor c(4)(c) existed, thereby bringing into focus the four mitigating factors. The jury also concluded that the aggravating factor was not outweighed by the mitigating factors. In Ramseur, we recognized that all murders presumably will be perceived as outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman. Consequently, we provided a narrowing construction of c(4)(c) to guide the jury's discretion. 106 N.J. at 198. Otherwise, (c)(4)(c) would violate the requirement that a capital sentencing scheme must provide a meaningful basis for distinguishing the few cases in which [the penalty] is imposed from the many in which it is not, Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 313, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 2764, 33 L.Ed. 2d 346, 392 (1972) (White, J., concurring), and the requirement that the jury's discretion must be suitably directed and limited so as to minimize the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious action. Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 189, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2932, 49 L.Ed. 2d 859, 883 (1976); see also Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420, 428, 100 S.Ct. 1759, 1765, 64 L.Ed. 2d 398, 406 (1980) (There is nothing in the words outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman standing alone, that implies any inherent restraint on the arbitrary and capricious infliction of the death sentence.). These considerations led us to conclude in Ramseur that the essence of the legislative concern is the defendant's state of mind. We do not believe that the Legislature intended to distinguish between two murderers each of whom intended to inflict immediate death upon the victim without any additional suffering whatsoever, when one victim dies immediately and the other lives for a long period of time and experiences excruciating pain. That capricious event alone would be perceived as an insufficient basis on which to inflict death on that defendant while imposing imprisonment on the other. [106 N.J. at 207.] Consequently, we excised the first part of that section  that the murder was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman  and confined section c(4)c to the second part  that the murder  involved torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim. Id. at 199. This led us to conclude that the terms torture and aggravated battery were identical in purpose. Both of these factors exist if the defendant intended to, and did in fact, cause extreme physical or mental suffering  in addition to death. Id. at 208. In other words, the extreme physical or mental suffering must be precisely what defendant wanted to occur in addition to death. Id. at 208-09. Depravity of mind, as we have construed it, distinguishes those who murder without purpose or meaning    from those who murder for a purpose (albeit a completely unjustified purpose). Id. at 209. To find depravity of mind, the jury must unanimously agree that the murder was not the product of greed, envy, revenge, or another of those emotions ordinarily associated with murder, and served no purpose for the defendant beyond his pleasure of killing. Id. at 211. Depravity of mind can also be found from evidence of mutilation of the victim after death. Id. at 209-10 n. 37. As the charge reveals, the trial court initially focused on whether the murder was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman, rather than on whether the defendant intended to inflict extreme physical or mental pain on Lawson in addition to death. To this extent, the trial court used the definition that we subsequently found unconstitutional in Ramseur. This instruction provides another ground for a reversal of the defendant's death penalty. Defendant additionally contends that the State has failed to proffer sufficient evidence that his murder of Lawson involved either torture or an aggravated battery. We addressed a similar contention in Ramseur. There, the defendant walked away from his bleeding victim but returned within a couple of minutes, told the victim that he was going to kill her grandchildren, and then inflicted the fatal stabs. 106 N.J. at 288. From that conduct, we found that a jury could infer that Ramseur, in addition to purposely killing the victim, also purposely inflicted severe mental pain prior to her death. Ibid. By contrast, the evidence here is that Lawson was stabbed twenty-four times, was shocked by the attack, and bled for twenty minutes before dying. The State relies solely on the twenty-four stab wounds, which the prosecutor described on summation as 24 aggravated batteries, to establish aggravating factor c(4)(c). The apparent motivation for the attack was to avenge the victim's physical abuse of defendant's sister. So viewed, this murder was not committed for the pleasure of killing, see Ramseur, supra, 106 N.J. at 211, but for revenge. Our concern is that if the c(4)(c) factor could be sustained on this evidence alone, there would be no principled way to distinguish this case, in which the death penalty was imposed, from the many cases in which it was not. Godfrey, supra, 446 U.S. at 433, 100 S.Ct. at 1767, 64 L.Ed. 2d at 409. In another case, the nature and number of wounds might bespeak an intent to inflict pain in addition to causing death. For example, multiple stab wounds, when combined with other evidence of defendant's intent, could support the contention that defendant knew or intended that the victim would suffer or that defendant wanted the victim to know that he or she was about to be murdered. Because the State is barred on other grounds from seeking the death penalty, we need not determine whether the proof of aggravating factor c(4)(c) was insufficient to support submission of that factor to the jury. We reverse the imposition of the death penalty, affirm the defendant's conviction for murder, and remand the matter to the Law Division for the imposition of a non-capital sentence.