Opinion ID: 1857482
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: inconsistent application of death penalty

Text: The fourth appellate claim avers that the death penalty in Nebraska is applied in an uneven, inconsistent, arbitrary and capricious fashion in violation of the due process clause of the state and federal constitutions and further violates both constitutions as it's [sic] application constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. He argues that the death penalty is inconsistently applied in that the interpretation of the role of the prosecutor and the effect of the prosecutor's decision to present or not present evidence of aggravating circumstances vary from county to county. He illustrates this contention by evidence he claims demonstrates that the Douglas County prosecutor has a different understanding of the obligation to present evidence of aggravating circumstances than does the Lancaster County prosecutor. Albeit in different form, we have previously considered and rejected this claim. In State v. Simants, 197 Neb. 549, 250 N.W.2d 881 (1977), cert. denied 434 U.S. 878, 98 S.Ct. 231, 54 L.Ed.2d 158, the petitioner argued, among other things, that the discretion exercised by the prosecutor in the Nebraska sentencing scheme resulted in a substantial risk that the death penalty would be applied in an arbitrary and capricious manner. We rejected that claim, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 199, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2937, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976), which stated: The existence of these discretionary stages is not determinative of the issues before us. At each of these stages an actor in the criminal justice system makes a decision which may remove a defendant from consideration as a candidate for the death penalty. Furman, in contrast, dealt with the decision to impose the death sentence on a specific individual who had been convicted of a capital offense. Nothing in any of our cases suggests that the decision to afford an individual defendant mercy violates the Constitution. Furman held only that, in order to minimize the risk that the death penalty would be imposed on a capriciously selected group of offenders, the decision to impose it had to be guided by standards so that the sentencing authority would focus on the particularized circumstances of the crime and the defendant. Clearly, the focus of Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972), and its progeny has been on suitably directing and limiting the discretion of the sentencing body which actually imposes the sentence in a given case. In the absence of a showing of purposeful discretion based on an unjustifiable standard such as race, religion, or other arbitrary classification, assertions that prosecutorial discretion results in the arbitrary and capricious application of the death penalty simply do not present cognizable constitutional issues. See, McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 107 S.Ct. 1756, 95 L.Ed.2d 262 (1987); State v. Miller, 216 Neb. 72, 341 N.W.2d 915 (1983). Accordingly, Moore's fourth appellate claim is likewise without merit.