Opinion ID: 6536853
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Consistency at all costs

Text: {211} There is no reason why a death sentence imposed upon a defendant who committed a particularly deplorable, death-eligible murder could not stand alone as a permissible death sentence despite the fact that all other death-eligible defendants received only life sentences. The existence of a statistical outlier in no way establishes that the imposition of a death sentence is necessarily comparatively disproportionate so long as there is some justification for that death sentence . Garcia seems to have embraced this very thought when it observed that a death sentence could be justified even if life sentences were normally imposed for the category of murder in which the crime producing the sentence belongs so long as there is some justification for that death sentence. 1983-NMSC-008 , ¶ 34, 99 N.M. 771 , 664 P.2d 969 . {212} It is difficult to see how, if our Legislature ever elected to reinstate the death penalty, any murder involving kidnapping or sexual assault could possibly be deemed not comparatively disproportionate in the wake of the Majority's opinion. And this illuminates the point that comparative disproportionality is-if taken too far and permitted to serve as a demand for the sort of symmetry and consistency in sentencing Pulley and McCleskey made clear is neither practical nor required-the poisoned pill  the Majority claims it is not. See Maj. Op. ¶ 53 (stating that comparative proportionality review is not a poisoned pill designed to eliminate the death penalty in entire categories of murder, an outcome that would indeed be a  de facto repeal of the death penalty).