Court Opinion

ID: 9594280
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:28:39.553258+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:41.030614
License: Public Domain

Justice Mitchell
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the majority’s holding that there was no error in the guilt-innocence determination phase of the defendant’s trial. As I believe the death penalty entered by the trial court was proper in this case, I dissent from the action of the majority in vacating the sentence of death and imposing a life sentence.
*488The jury in this case specifically found as an aggravating circumstance that the murder was committed against a law enforcement officer while engaged in the performance of his official duties. G.S. 15A-2000(e)(8). The jury then found that this statutory aggravating circumstance outweighed the mitigating circumstances and that the defendant should be sentenced to death. As a result, Judge Thornburg was required to and did sentence the defendant to death.
I am not willing to say that the sentence of death in this case is excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases considering both the crime and the defendant. G.S. 15A-2000(d)(2). Given the fact that there are almost no cases in the “pool” we use for proportionality review which involve the killing of a law enforcement officer engaged in the performance of his official duties, I agree with the majority that any meaningful comparison in this limited pool is “virtually impossible.” Given this state of affairs, I am entirely unwilling to set aside a verdict of twelve citizens recommending death.
The murder of a law enforcement officer engaged in the performance of his official duties differs in kind and not merely in degree from other murders. When in the performance of his duties, a law enforcement officer is the representative of the public and a symbol of the rule of law. The murder of a law enforcement officer engaged in the performance of his duties in the truest sense strikes a blow at the entire public—the body politic—and is a direct attack upon the rule of law which must prevail if our society as we know it is to survive.
A jury having found after solemn consideration that the defendant killed a law enforcement officer engaged in the performance of his official duties and that this aggravating circumstance outweighed the mitigating circumstances and called for the penalty of death, I do not believe that we should hold the penalty disproportionate. I vote to find no error in either the verdict or the sentence of death.
Justices MEYER and Martin join in this opinion.