Court Opinion

ID: 9682269
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:08:49.87655+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:38.577132
License: Public Domain

FONES and BROCK, Justices,
dissenting.
Considering all of the circumstances of this crime, especially the indications that the decision to kill was made on “the spur of the moment,” and mindful of the injunction laid down by the Supreme Court in Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420, 100 S.Ct. 1759 at 1764, 64 L.Ed.2d 398 (1980), that “a capital sentencing scheme must, in short, provide a ‘meaningful basis for distinguishing the few cases in which [the penalty] is imposed from the many cases in which it is not/ ” we would exercise the authority vested in this Court by T.C.A., Section 39-2-205(c)(l) and Section 39-2-205(d)(2), and set aside the death sentence and remand this case for the entry and enforcement of a judgment imposing a life sentence upon defendant Johnson.