Opinion ID: 2084452
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Additional Case Comparisons

Text: The majority has accepted seven of the ten additional cases as comparable, because of the vulnerability of the victim. (Conley, Masini(two), Mincey, Rivera, James and Vasquez). I accept them as comparable as well. I agree with my colleagues in the majority that both Masini (two cases), who murdered four elderly persons, and Vasquez are more culpable than Timmendequas. I also agree that Conley is equally culpable, thus automatically rendering four out of the seven cases supportive of Timmendequas' disproportionality claim. Samuel Mincey's life sentence also bolsters Timmendequas' disproportionality claim. Mincey, who had an extensive prior record and no mitigating evidence, raped and murdered a seventy-three-year old woman. In the course of the crime, he tortured her. The majority concludes that, although Mincey is roughly as culpable as Timmendequas, because the prosecutor did not seek a death sentence against Mincey as a result of an erroneous belief that the statute of limitations had run, a valid basis for the discrepancy between Mincey's life sentence and Timmendequas' death sentence is thereby established. Ante at 53, 773 A. 2d at 37. The fact that the prosecutor misunderstood the law is irrelevant in assessing the proportionality of Timmendequas' death sentence; indeed, it provides a clear illustration of the arbitrary way in which capital punishment is administered. The simple fact is that Jesse Timmendequas awaits death while an identically culpable person has been granted a life sentence. How the majority can view Jesse Timmendequas as more culpable than Rafael Rivera is hard to fathom. Rivera lived next door to and had a close, almost familial, relationship with the victim, a seventy-eight-year old widow. While the victim was visiting Rivera and his girlfriend, Rivera went into her apartment to steal from her. However, she returned to her apartment and surprised him. A struggle ensued in which he struck her many times in the face, forearms, ribs and back. He tore her vagina with either his hand or her cane. The cause of death was strangulation. Rivera had a vast prior record. He also had a history of abusing cocaine, marijuana and alcohol, and he was seen drunk shortly before the murder. The jury convicted him of capital murder, robbery, aggravated sexual assault and burglary and found the c(4)(c) (torture or depravity) aggravator, a factor not present in Timmendequas' case; it did not find the extreme emotional disturbance mitigator. From his record, his lack of mitigating evidence and the sheer violence of his crime, Rivera plainly is more culpable than Jesse Timmendequas. Yet Rivera received life and Jesse Timmendequas death. I further disagree that Otis James, who committed the asphyxiation murder of an eighty-three-year old woman whom he had sexually assaulted, is less culpable than Timmendequas. He had a long record and had no mitigating evidence of the quality presented by Timmendequas. At worst, then, he is equally as culpable as Timmendequas. Thus, of the seven comparable life sentenced cases in this category, three (Masini twice) are more culpable than Jesse Timmendequas; the other four are equally culpable; and none is less culpable. Recapitulating, of the twenty-one cases (fourteen agreed on and seven additional), twenty possess enough information to be useful in our comparison exercise. Of those, Jesse Timmendequas is less culpable than both death sentenced defendants; equal to or less culpable than the sixteen life sentenced defendants; and more culpable than one life sentenced defendant. Moreover, three of the comparison cases, including one that the majority characterizes as equally culpable, were not even prosecuted capitally (Wilson, Conley and Mincey). Thirteen of the twenty-one comparison cases resulted in plea offers by the State. Although under our proportionality review scheme, an occasional sentencing disparity is permissible, the gross disparity demonstrated here between Timmendequas and all other similarly situated defendants shows that his sentence is an aberration.