Opinion ID: 1258573
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: penalty proceeding evidence

Text: The State introduced as victim impact evidence the testimony of Judy Harding, the victim's stepmother, who described how much he was missed by his family. Defendant introduced as mitigating evidence the testimonies of defendant's family members, including his father and sister, detailing how defendant was adversely affected during childhood by his mother's paranoid schizophrenia and the mental problems his father suffered as a result of a head injury. Claudia Reeves Coleman, Ph.D., a licensed clinical psychologist with a practice in Raleigh, was tendered by defendant without objection as an expert in forensic psychology. Dr. Coleman testified that she diagnosed defendant as having suffered from a mood disorder since childhood; that defendant was thus prone to panic and anxiety attacks, depression, and poor impulse control; and that he was at a higher than normal risk for developing a schizophrenic disorder as a consequence of his family's mental health history. Dr. Coleman's opinion was that, at the time of the murder, defendant was suffering from a significant mood disorder which impaired his capacity to conform his conduct to the law. The jury found as aggravating circumstances that the murder was committed for pecuniary gain, that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, that the murder was committed while defendant was engaged in the commission of robbery with a dangerous weapon, and that the murder was committed while defendant was engaged in the commission of first-degree kidnapping. One or more jurors found the statutory mitigating circumstances that defendant has no significant history of prior criminal activity and that the murder was committed while defendant was under a mental or emotional disturbance. Several nonstatutory mitigating circumstances were also found to exist by one or more jurors. The jury unanimously found the mitigating circumstances insufficient to outweigh the aggravating circumstances, and further found that the aggravating circumstances were sufficiently substantial to call for imposition of the death penalty when considered with the mitigating circumstances. Accordingly, the jury entered its binding recommendation that defendant be sentenced to death for the murder conviction.