Court Opinion

ID: 9583598
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:40:22.743035+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:10.755136
License: Public Domain

LANE, Judge:
specially concurring.
I acknowledge and accept the fact that the Supreme Court of the United States ruled it is permissible under the Constitution of the United States for a state to pass laws that would allow “victim impact” evidence to be *836introduced for purposes of sentencing in Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 111 S.Ct. 2597, 115 L.Ed.2d 720 (1991), and the Oklahoma legislature did precisely this when it amended 21 O.S.1994 § 701.10(C) and enacted the Victim Impact Statement Act, 22 O.S.1994 § 984 et seq. These events went contrary to my concepts of the purpose of a sentencing proceeding.
I believe that the purposes of sentencing should be to tailor a punishment to fit the defendant. Simply put, we should be limited to determining if under the law the defendant deserves to die for his actions. With this decision, we are shifting some of the emphasis to the victim. I believe that this will introduce an arbitrary factor into the sentencing that has nothing to do with the defendant. Consider two scenarios of a crime where a robber kills the victim during the course of a robbery. In both, the robber has selected his victim at random and does not know anything about him. In the first, the victim is a minister of the gospel that is well loved by his family. He has never been in any trouble and has a family of a devoted wife and six small children who are dependent upon him for their entire support. In the second, the victim is a drug dealer who has been convicted of selling drugs to junior high school students. He does not have a family, or what family he does have would testify that he did not deserve to live and no longer meant anything to them. I think everyone would agree that the fives and lifestyles of these two victims could have a major impact upon the sentence received. Also, the lifestyles and fives of the victims do not have anything to do with the defendant himself.
I disagree with the thought that the State should be able to balance the mitigating evidence of the defendant’s character and the impact that he has on his family with evidence of the impact of the death of the victim on his family. Sentencing is not a matter of balancing or comparing lives. It is a matter of determining what should be done with the defendant because of the crime that he committed. When a defendant presents his impact evidence he is offering it to mitigate and rebut the State’s evidence of aggravation introduced to show the defendant deserves to die. The State may contest this through cross examination and presenting conflicting evidence in rebuttal. This is the proper method to counter the defendant’s evidence. It is not a contest to determine who has the better right to live and who most deserves to die.
However, as I previously stated, I accept the fact the Supreme Court has said the U.S. Constitution does not prohibit this type of testimony, and I cannot find anything in the Oklahoma Constitution that would contradict this. I reluctantly concur that victim impact testimony that is properly limited, as indicated in this opinion, can be used.