Opinion ID: 1667146
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Constitutionality of the aggravator

Text: ś 42. Thorson argues that the United States Supreme Court has never approved a limiting instruction for Miss.Code Ann. § 99-19-101(5)(h); therefore, this section must be stricken as unconstitutional. Similar limiting language like that employed in the last sentence of Instruction SP-2, was approved by the Supreme Court in Lewis v. Jeffers, 497 U.S. 764, 768-70, 110 S.Ct. 3092, 3096, 111 L.Ed.2d 606, 615-16 (1990) and Walton v. Arizona, 497 U.S. 639, 645-47, 110 S.Ct. 3047, 3053, 111 L.Ed.2d 511, 523-24 (1990). In Puckett v. State, 737 So.2d 322 (Miss.1999), this Court, finding that the language approved by the Supreme Court in Walton was similar to the instruction used in the case at bar, denied the defendant's claim that the Supreme Court had failed to approve any limiting instruction for Mississippi's especially heinous, atrocious or cruel aggravator. Therefore, this issue is without merit.