Opinion ID: 1817377
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: testimony by the victim's mother

Text: At the sentencing trial, the judge allowed the victim's mother, Vivian Gazzier, to testify regarding the fear her daughter had felt because of two other convenience store murders in the Mobile area during the two years preceding her daughter's murder. Mrs. Grazzier testified that her daughter had turned in her resignation on the day she was murdered because of the fear she felt. The defendant argues that the trial court committed error in admitting Gazzier's testimony because, he argues, the testimony was not relevant to any aggravating circumstances proffered by the State and was inadmissible hearsay. The trial court admitted the mother's testimony, based on the following reasoning: The Section 13-11-6(8) aggravating circumstance does exist. The Defendant did not suddenly kill Cheryl Lynn Payton without her having an opportunity to suffer the anticipation of her death at the hands of a murderer. Instead, the Defendant abducted her; he drove her to an isolated spot; because it was raining, he raped her in the cab of his pickup truck so he would not get wet; he marched the terrified victim out of the truck; and he shot her to death. Cheryl Lynn Payton knew that two other female convenience store clerks in Mobile had been murdered in the preceding year. She knew that the more recent victim had been abducted and that after she had been killed, her body had been mutilated. Cheryl Lynn Payton was afraid that she, too, would be abducted and murdered. As she was being abducted, as she was being taken to an isolated spot, as she was being raped, and as she was taken from the Defendant's truck, Cheryl Lynn Payton was terrified. She had reason to know that she was going to die long before the Defendant actually killed her. Considering all the circumstances, this capital offense was especially heinous, atrocious and cruel. The heinousness, atrociousness, and cruelty in this capital offense exceeded by far that which is present in every capital offense. In order for a trial court to find that a murder was heinous, atrocious, and cruel, the crime must be of such a nature that it is conscienceless or pitiless and unnecessarily torturous to the victim. Ex parte Kyzer, 399 So.2d 330, 334 (Ala.1981). The defendant argues that this case is analogous to that of Booth v. Maryland, 482 U.S. 496, 107 S.Ct. 2529, 96 L.Ed.2d 440 (1987), and that the judgment must, therefore, be reversed. We disagree. In Booth, an elderly Baltimore, Maryland, couple were brutally stabbed to death by the defendant Booth and an accomplice. Before the sentencing phase of the trial, the State Division of Parole and Probation interviewed the victims' son, daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter. These interviews were then compiled into a Victim Impact Statement (V.I.S.) The V.I.S. included very emotional statements by those interviewed and spoke of the many fine qualities of the deceased. The Division of Parole and Probation official who interviewed the survivors concluded the report by writing: It became increasingly apparent to the writer as she talked to the family members that the murder of Mr. and Mrs. Bronstein is still such a shocking, painful, and devastating memory to them that it permeates every aspect of their daily lives. It is doubtful that they will ever be able to fully recover from this tragedy and not be haunted by the memory of the brutal manner in which their loved ones were murdered and taken from them. Id., 482 U.S. at 498-99, 107 S.Ct. at 2531-32. The prosecutor in Booth, over defense counsel objections, read the V.I.S. to the jury. The jury sentenced Booth to die for one of the murders and to life imprisonment for the other murder. The United States Supreme Court overturned the capital conviction, holding that the introduction of the V.I.S. violated the Eighth Amendment. Id., 482 U.S. at 504, 107 S.Ct. at 2536. The facts of this case differ markedly from those in Booth. Here, the testimony that the trial court relied on dealt not with the suffering Mrs. Gazzier had experienced since the murder, but rather the fear that Cheryl Lynn Payton experienced leading up to her murder. Unlike the jury in Booth, the trial court in this case relied on the emotions that Cheryl Lynn Payton felt, not the emotions felt by her survivors. In Booth, the Supreme Court overturned the conviction because the defendant had no control over the emotions that the surviving relatives felt. Here, the defendant surely was aware that, because of the recent crimes he had committed, a female convenience store clerk like Cheryl Lynn Payton would be afraid of being abducted, raped, and murdered. We adopt, by reference, the language of the trial judge regarding this aggravating circumstance, and we conclude that his finding was proper. In addition, the statements made by the victim's mother, although hearsay, were admissible because they were declarations of the emotion of fear. C. Gamble, McElroy's Alabama Evidence, 262.01(11) (3d ed.1977). The trial court, therefore, was correct in admitting the testimony of Mrs. Gazzier.