Court Opinion

ID: 9505457
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 20:05:02.509597+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:30.631915
License: Public Domain

BOEHM, Justice,
dissenting.
In Weeks v. State, 697 N.E.2d 28 (Ind.1998), we held that a finding by a jury of guilty but mentally ill required the sentencing judge to articulate the effect of that finding on the sentence. In my view, this requires a determination whether the defendant's mental illness was a mitigating factor and, if so, what weight it deserves. The factors identified in Archer v. State, 689 N.E.2d 678 (Ind.1997), may be among the relevant considerations in those determinations, but these will undoubtedly vary from case to case.
Here we have a plea of guilty but mentally il, not a finding by the trier of fact. Although the trial court dismissed Smith's mental illness with minimal discussion and a finding of no mitigating cireumstances, I would nevertheless affirm the sentence because I believe the evidence of mental illness, which is solely documentary, demonstrates that this case is far removed from the facts of Weeks, where the defendant's bizarre behavior over a long period of time was obvious, and the apparently motiveless crime undoubtedly supported the jury's finding of guilty but mentally ill. In addition, the detailed severely aggravating facts identified by the trial court and cited by the Chief Justice in my view demonstrate that this sentence should be affirmed for the reasons the Chief Justice gives.
Finally, I do not agree with the majority that the impact on the three-year-old son *825was an improper consideration in sentencing. Smith lived three doors from Ms. Bush. Smith was thus on fair notice that he was killing the mother of a three year old. Not every murder deprives a child of its mother, and particularly not at such a tender age. This murder thus was, in terminology sometimes adopted by this court, "worse" than many, and I believe the trial court properly took that into account.
SHEPARD, C.J., concurs.