Opinion ID: 2209082
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: court's memorandum of findings

Text: The Court has adjudged that the death penalty be imposed in this cause. The Court's determination is based upon the following findings and reasoning which have been and are hereby ordered incorporated as part of the Court's judgment and sentencing.

(a). The co-defendant Snyder testified to the contrary and his version corresponded to the details of the defendant's many admissions that he did the killing. Further, defendant's many admissions without any reasonable explanations as to why the admissions were made and no denial that they were, in fact, made, cannot be explained away except on the basis that it was the defendant who did the killing. In addition, the defendant has never presented the Court with his account of what occurred at the scene of the killing to give a basis for determining otherwise. The Court has discounted the testimony of some witnesses who testified at the trial who viewed the incident from several hundred feet away in the darkness on the basis that what they thought they saw did not correspond with the victim's wound being from the rear and downward. The evidence establishes the location and nature of the wound clearly and beyond a reasonable doubt as being a back wound with entry from the back and exiting in the front in a downward path (1) There has been the suggestion that all who heard defendant's admissions were lying and had some motivation to lie  but when consideration is given to the testimony of the brother of the defendant, the daughter of the brother's girlfriend, and those who were confined with the defendant, it is not likely that all of them were motivated to make up the admissions. In addition, the Court observed the witnesses at trial and finds that in fact they were not misstating or misrepresenting the admissions of the defendant.
(a) However, in additional to evidence to the contrary above referred to, it does not make sense that the defendant if acting out of fear or influence would make any admission at all implicating the two. (b) Or if so, more likely he would have excluded Snyder and included only himself. (c) And in any event, it would appear ordinarily he would have replaced Snyder with himself in his story, not make up a new version. His contention has been that only one person fought and shot the victim, namely, Snyder; not one fought (Snyder) and the other shot (Spranger) as has been his version of the incident by his admission. Particularly is this true since he first implicated himself to his brother and the daughter of his brother's girlfriend soon after the incident and before he would have had time to think through an entirely different version of the incident.
1. The nature of the wound and the location and angle of the wound in the back reflect that the weapon would have been pointed and fired from behind and above the victim. 2. Statements that the defendant has made as to the way in which the killing was accomplished. 3. The defendant's comment at the scene, I shot the bastard, lets get our [sic] of here. 4. The defendant's statement to his brother that it was like someone stepping inside him and doing the killing and then stepping back out, although perhaps intended to reflect some kind of psychological phenomenon, there is no basis in the evidence for such a psychological conclusion. Consequently, the statement tends to reflect primarily the deliberateness of the act. 5. There is no contention of accident and no suggestion in the defendant's version that the act was other than deliberate. Although he blames Snyder, there is no indication the shooter acted other than deliberately and intentionally. C. The evidence also establishes and the Court finds beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim, Marshal Miner, was a law enforcement officer acting in the line and course of duty at the time of the killing. D. Therefore, the abbravating [sic] factor, the murder of a law enforcement officer by the defendant in the course of duty, has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt and the Court finds that said aggravating factor has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

1. Defendant's age. 2. Defendant's lack of record and violent history. 3. Defendant's state of intoxication at the time of the incident. 4. The defendant was acting under emotional or stressful situation. 5. The defendant engaged in no advance plan or scheme to kill. 6. The defendant is subject to rehabilitation. 7. The defendant is a worthwhile human being. 8. The defendant cooperated with authorities. 9. The co-defendant Snyder received a disproportionate sentence. The Court finds with regard to mitigating factors as follows: