Opinion ID: 1857482
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Constitutionality of Resentencing Panel's Definition.

Text: That brings us to Moore's contention that the resentencing panel's definition of the exceptional depravity component of aggravating circumstance § 29-2523(1)(d) is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. According to the resentencing panel, exceptional depravity could be proved if any one or more of the four definitions the panel had developed were found to apply. Three of these definitions were simply narrower versions of the first three Palmer factors: (1) the killer's infliction of prolonged or significant physical violence, such as sexual abuse, on the victim after the victim's death or loss of consciousness; (2) the killer's mutilation or dismemberment of the victim's body after death; and (3) the apparent relishing of the murder by the killer. However, the fourth definition developed by the panel was not based on Palmer, but on the coldly calculated language that the Eighth Circuit had disapproved. This fourth definition read: the killer's cold, calculated planning of the victim's death, as exemplified by experimentation with the method of causing the victim's death or by the purposeful selection of a particular victim on the basis of specific characteristics such as race, gender, creed, sexual orientation, disability, or age. See, e.g. State v. Harper, 208 Neb. 568, 573-574, 304 N.W.2d 663, 667, cert. denied, 454 U.S. 882, 102 S.Ct. 368, 70 L.Ed.2d 194 (1981); id. at 576, 304 N.W.2d at 668 (experimentation with method of death, poison, by administration to family pets); State v. Moore, 210 Neb. at 461-462, 316 N.W.2d at 36-37; id. at 471, 316 N.W.2d at 41 (selection of victim based on particular characteristics). This element is based on the Nebraska Supreme Court's interpretation of exceptional depravity in the two cases cited as examples, and is intended to require more than merely the premeditation necessary to support a conviction for first-degree murder. To resolve the question before us, we need only concern ourselves with this fourth definition inasmuch as it was the only one the resentencing panel found to be present. The requirement of that definition, that there be cold, calculated planning of the victim's death, is merely a narrowing of our previous articulations of exceptional depravity found in State v. Harper, 208 Neb. 568, 304 N.W.2d 663 (1981), cert. denied 454 U.S. 882, 102 S.Ct. 368, 70 L.Ed.2d 194, and State v. Moore, 210 Neb. 457, 316 N.W.2d 33 (1982), cert. denied 456 U.S. 984, 102 S.Ct. 2260, 72 L.Ed.2d 864. Under the facts before the panel, this aspect of exceptional depravity is restricted to just two situations: (1) where the defendant experimented with the method of causing the victim's death or (2) where the defendant purposefully selected a particular victim on the basis of specific characteristics such as race, gender, creed, sexual orientation, disability, or age. This definition is clearly narrower and more specific than the so coldly calculated as to indicate a state of mind totally and senselessly bereft of any regard for human life language relied upon by Moore's original sentencing panel. Consequently, the resentencing panel's definition is not vague. It provides sufficient guidance to the sentencing authority so as to minimize the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious action, Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 189, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2932, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976), and constitutes a `meaningful basis for distinguishing the few cases in which [the death penalty] is imposed from the many cases in which it is not,' 428 U.S. at 188, 96 S.Ct. at 2932, quoting Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972). Neither is the resentencing panel's definition overbroad, as alleged by Moore. By requiring more than the premeditation necessary to support a first degree murder conviction, this aspect of the exceptional depravity component of aggravating circumstance § 29-2523(1)(d) is clearly restricted to a subclass of those defendants convicted of first degree murder. Moore's claim that the panel's definition was vague and overbroad is therefore without merit. We find the resentencing panel's reformulation of the cold, calculated planning aspect of exceptional depravity to be sound and hereby adopt it. Thus, the exceptional depravity component of aggravating circumstance § 29-2523(1)(d) may be proved either by demonstrating the existence of one or more of the factors identified in State v. Palmer, 224 Neb. 282, 399 N.W.2d 706 (1986), cert. denied 484 U.S. 872, 108 S.Ct. 206, 98 L.Ed.2d 157 (1987), or by demonstrating the killer's cold, calculated planning of the victim's death, as exemplified by experimentation with the method of causing the death or by the purposeful selection of a particular victim on the basis of specific characteristics.