Court Opinion

ID: 9721079
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:48:02.959025+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:23.320173
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE RYAN, dissenting: I dissent from the holding of the majority opinion vacating the sentence of death and remanding the cause for a new sentencing hearing. The majority based its holding on the admission into evidence of the victim impact statement. The majority finds that the use of the statement violates the holding of the majority in Booth v. Maryland (1987), 482 U.S. 496, 96 L. Ed. 2d 440, 107 S. Ct. 2529. However, in Booth, the defense counsel had moved to suppress the statement and the trial court had denied the motion. In our case, the defense counsel did not object to the use of the victim impact statement and did not object to its introduction into evidence at the sentencing hearing. Thus, unless the trial judge, before whom the sentencing hearing was being conducted without a jury, wanted to assume the role of the defense counsel, there was no reason for him to exclude the statement. We do not know why defense counsel made no objection to the use of the statement. It may well be that he was holding this ace up his sleeve, saving it to be used on appeal to achieve the very result reached by the majority opinion — the vacatur of the death sentence and the remand for another sentencing hearing — thus giving him two opportunities, instead of one, to save his client from the death sentence.