Opinion ID: 2630520
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Brutality

Text: ¶ 113 The court assistant challenges the trial court's use of brutality as an aggravating factor in the sentencing proceeding. He claims that brutality as an aggravating factor fails to narrow the classification of defendants who are death eligible. He also claims that there is nothing in the evidence to justify the application of the heinousness aggravating factor to any of the murders. He further cites State v. Tuttle, 780 P.2d 1203 (Utah 1989), and Utah Code section 76-5-202(q) (Supp.2001) to establish that all murders are brutal and proof of serious abuse prior to death must be present in order for heinous acts to qualify as aggravating factors. The State argues that regardless of whether the aggravating factor considered meets the technical definition of heinousness, the court is permitted to consider the nature of the criminal acts in determining the sentence. ¶ 114 We find the trial court did not err in considering the brutality of Arguelles's acts. First, regardless of whether the level of brutality rose to the level of heinousness as outlined in Tuttle, brutality may be considered if relevant to the balancing of aggravating and mitigating evidence. Utah Code Ann. § 76-3-207(2)(a)(iv) (Supp.2001). Second, the court assistant's suggestion that the evidence does not reveal any heinous aggravating factors is unsupported by the record. The trial court stated during the sentencing proceeding that the defendant has shown an horrific brutality, particularly to Lisa Martinez. Contrary to the court assistant's assertion, this statement is not limited to Lisa Martinez and accurately describes the acts committed against the other victims as well. Even though the trial court did not specifically mention other victims, it references the heinous brutality committed against them, meeting the standard set forth in Wood and Tuttle. As in Tuttle, the murders here involved terrible physical abuse before death that evidenced an intent to cause wholly unnecessary suffering to the victims. [25] Tuttle, 780 P.2d at 1218. The brutality of the crimes therefore met the threshold level of heinousness to warrant consideration as an aggravating factor.