Court Opinion

ID: 9538574
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:37:51.48959+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:59.211298
License: Public Domain

FELDMAN, Vice Chief Justice,
specially concurring.
I agree with the result and with the reasoning of the court. I concur specially only because I depart from that portion of *174the court’s aggravation/mitigation analysis dealing with the question of whether the killing was especially depraved under A.R.S. § 13-703(F)(6). See at 166-167, 823 P.2d at 33-34. The court correctly concludes that the murder was especially depraved based on the Gretzler factors. The court goes on to say, however, that the murder was also especially depraved because it was committed to eliminate the victims as witnesses. Id. at 166-167, 823 P.2d at 33-34.
Section 13-703(F)(6) is worded in the disjunctive, so the court need find only that the killing was especially cruel, heinous, or depraved to establish this aggravating circumstance. State v. Amaya-Ruiz, 166 Ariz. 152, 177, 800 P.2d 1260, 1285 (1990). Consequently, because the court finds the killing in this case to be unquestionably cruel and depraved on other grounds, the remainder of the depravity analysis, dealing with the elimination of witnesses, is superfluous.
More important, the analysis does not address the threshold question of whether § 13-703 permits this court to find that a killing is especially depraved for the independent reason that the motive for the killing was to eliminate witnesses. To the extent that this is implied, I disagree.
No doubt, killing to eliminate witnesses may be a factor in finding depravity, but the legislature has characterized only one motive — pecuniary gain — as a per se aggravating circumstance. See A.R.S. § 13-703(F)(5); see also State v. Harding, 141 Ariz. 492, 500, 687 P.2d 1247, 1255 (1984) (rejecting argument that sentencing statute was arbitrary and capricious because it included motive of pecuniary gain as an aggravating circumstance but not motive of eliminating witness; “inclusion of a killing motivated by pecuniary gain on the list, as opposed to other factors, is a proper determination for the legislature”). By failing to enumerate any other motive, the legislature has implied that other reasons for killing are not per se aggravating circumstances.
This court has never faced or decided this issue of whether killing to eliminate a witness is, per se, an aggravating circumstance. In State v. Marlow, 163 Ariz. 65, 71, 786 P.2d 395, 401 (1989), we stated that “[w]e have previously concluded that a killing motivated by a desire to eliminate the victim as a witness is heinous or depraved,” and cited Correll, Gillies, and Smith as support for this conclusion. These cases do not stand for such a proposition. None of them held that killing to eliminate a witness was, without more, an aggravating circumstance.5 The issue was neither briefed nor argued by the parties in this case, and I would make it clear that we do not address it at this time. Because the court does not unambiguously state that the basis for its depravity finding is the presence of the Gretzler factors plus the motive to eliminate witnesses, I write to make it clear that the court has never held that this motive, alone, is a sufficient basis for such a finding.

. See State v. Correll, 148 Ariz. 468, 481, 715 P.2d 721, 734 (1986) (depravity was "indicated" by several factors including fact that murder was committed to prevent victim from testifying about contemporaneous felony); State v. Gillies, 142 Ariz. 564, 570, 691 P.2d 655, 661 (1984) (as one of two factors, "elimination of witnesses, as a motive for murder ... illustrates heinousness and depravity’), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1059, 105 S.Ct. 1775, 84 L.Ed.2d 834 (1985); State v. Smith, 141 Ariz. 510, 511-12, 687 P.2d 1265, 1266-67 (1984) (court stated that killing to eliminate witness “tends to prove depravity,” but concluded that trial court had not found underlying "facts to be true beyond a reasonable doubt”).