Opinion ID: 429505
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: evidence supporting presence of an aggravating factor

Text: 55 As explained above, Georgia law requires a sentencing jury to find, beyond a reasonable doubt, the existence of at least one statutorily specified aggravating factor before it may impose a sentence of death. O.C.G.A. Sec. 17-10-30(c). Tucker's jury convicted him of two capital crimes, murder and kidnapping with bodily injury. It sentenced him to death only for murder. The aggravating circumstance it found was that Tucker committed murder while ... engaged in the commission of another capital felony, O.C.G.A. Sec. 17-10-30(b)(2), namely, kidnapping with bodily injury. Because simple kidnapping is not a capital felony, the jury was required to find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Tucker committed the bodily injury aspect of kidnapping with bodily injury. Although framed in terms of sufficiency of the evidence, the issue here is really a legal one. Tucker contends that the evidence presented at trial showed that the only injuries to the victim were those causing death. He claims that he could not be convicted of both murder and kidnapping with bodily injury because the injuries required for the latter conviction must be separate from those that caused the victim to die. 18 Even if Tucker's view of the facts is correct, we find his argument without merit. 56 The selection and definition of aggravating factors is within the province of the states. The Supreme Court has recently pointed out that the major focus of the federal courts in reviewing state death penalty statutes has been more with the procedure by which the State imposes the death sentence than with the substantive factors the State lays before the jury as a basis for imposing death. California v. Ramos, --- U.S. ----, ----, 103 S.Ct. 3446, 3451, 77 L.Ed.2d 1171 (1983). In Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. at 192, 96 S.Ct. at 2934 (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.), three members of the court stated that the problem [of channeling jury discretion] will be alleviated if the jury is given guidance regarding the factors about the crime and the defendant that the State, representing organized society, deems particularly relevant to the sentencing decision. Nevertheless, [i]t would be erroneous to suggest ... that the Court has imposed no substantive limitations on the particular factors that a capital sentencing jury may consider in determining whether death is appropriate. Ramos, --- U.S. at ----, 103 S.Ct. at 3452. This Court may review a state's aggravating factors to determine whether they genuinely narrow the class of persons eligible for the death penalty and ... reasonably justify the imposition of a more severe sentence on the defendant compared to others found guilty of murder. Zant v. Stephens, --- U.S. ----, ----, 103 S.Ct. 2733, 2742-43, 77 L.Ed.2d 235 (1983). See also Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420, 100 S.Ct. 1759, 64 L.Ed.2d 398 (1980). We may not, however, second guess a state court's interpretation of its own statute if that interpretation meets these constitutional requirements. 57 The Supreme Court of Georgia has held explicitly that a defendant may be convicted of both murder and kidnapping with bodily injury when the only injury is the one causing death. Wilson v. State, 246 Ga. 62, 268 S.E.2d 895 (1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1103, 101 S.Ct. 901, 66 L.Ed.2d 830 (1981), involved a kidnap victim who was injured only by the gunshot wound that killed him. The supreme court held that kidnapping with bodily injury and murder are not included crimes as a matter of law or fact and ... where a kidnap victim is murdered the aggravating circumstance of kidnapping with bodily injury is supported by the evidence. Id. 268 S.E.2d at 900. See also Stephens v. Hopper, 241 Ga. 596, 247 S.E.2d 92, 95 (1978); Potts v. State, 241 Ga. 67, 243 S.E.2d 510, 519 (1978); Pryor v. State, 238 Ga. 698, 234 S.E.2d 918, 923, cert. denied, 434 U.S. 935, 98 S.Ct. 422, 54 L.Ed.2d 294 (1977). 19 Under Georgia law, the jury's verdict on the kidnapping with bodily injury was amply supported by the evidence. 58 The (b)(2) aggravating circumstance thus interpreted does not violate the federal constitutional requirement that aggravating factors adequately channel the sentencing decision of the jury by genuinely narrowing the class of persons eligible for the death penalty and by reasonably justifying the imposition of a more severe sentence. Stephens, supra, --- U.S. at ----, 103 S.Ct. at 2742. The state supreme court's definition of kidnapping with bodily injury is not vague, and it serves to isolate a particularly heinous class of cases. Tucker's reference to Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420, 100 S.Ct. 1759, 64 L.Ed.2d 398 (1980), is unavailing. There a plurality of the Supreme Court was concerned with narrowing the (b)(7) 20 aggravating factor when it intimated that (b)(7) requires evidence of serious physical abuse of the victim before death. Id. at 431, 100 S.Ct. at 1766. The plurality was attempting to lend substance to the (b)(7) limitation on jury discretion; it did not hold that such evidence was a prerequisite to every sentence of death. The (b)(2) aggravating factor, as interpreted by the Supreme Court of Georgia, contains none of the ambiguity that required a narrowing interpretation of (b)(7) in Godfrey. Tucker's claim as to the insufficiency of the evidence of an aggravating factor is without merit. 21 59