Opinion ID: 1091937
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: The Mississippi Supreme Court failed to make a proportionality review of the sentence in this case as required by State law and thereby violated Petitioner's rights.

Text: Lockett contends that this Court failed to review his sentence of death appropriately, that is, in accordance with Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-105(3)(c) (Supp. 1986). Specifically, Lockett claims (1) the Court failed to compare his case with any other case; (2) the Court failed to conduct a meaningful proportionality review by reciting all prior death cases as an appendix to the opinion; and (3) failure to give a more detailed proportionality review which would have resulted in the reversal of the sentence of death. Section 99-19-105(3)(c) provides that when reviewing a sentence of death, this Court shall determine ... [w]hether the sentence of death is excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the crime and the defendant. A review of the opinion in this case shows that the Court did, in fact, follow the statutory mandates in affirming the sentence of death, and considered all prior death cases presented to the Court. As evidence of the proportionality review and compliance with the statutory provisions, in addition to stating that past death penalty cases were considered in the proportionality review, a list of all cases considered was attached at the end of the opinion in Lockett I as Appendix A: Lockett finally argues that the death sentence imposed upon him is disproportionate due to the fact that he is young, from a deprived background, has no significant criminal history, was convicted of a crime for which no motive appears and which was the product of schizophrenia. Further, fundamental constitutional errors in the trial and sentence requires that his death sentence be set aside. A review of past death penalty cases indicates that the death penalty, if no constitutional error is found in Lockett's trial, is not disproportionate to the sentence. See Jones v. State, 517 So.2d 1295 (Miss. 1987) (Appendix A). Lockett, 517 So.2d at 1338. Accordingly, this assignment is without merit.