Court Opinion

ID: 9717965
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:13:42.127891+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:56.462756
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Justice,
concurring in part and concurring in result.
I concur in the result of the majority's opinion and its analysis of all issues except three aspects of part 10 concerning the use of non-statutory aggravating cireumstances and victim impact evidence.
First, the majority concludes that to permit the trial court to consider non-statutory aggravating cireumstances violates Article 1, § 16 of the Indiana Constitution because it could result in disproportionate sentencing. I do not reach the constitutional issue because I believe that consideration of non-statutory aggravating cireumstances is prohibited by our death penalty statute itself. My view of this issue is the same as expressed by Justice DeBruler in Minnick v. State:
Indiana's statutory system for giving death requires the sentencer to balance the weight of aggravating cireumstances enumerated in the death statute against any mitigating circumstances. This is our death sentence procedure and it does not permit the sentencer to consider aggravating cireumstances other than those enumerated in the death sentence statute when engaged in the weighing process.
Minnick v. State (1989), 544 N.E.2d 471, 483, reh'g denied (DeBruler, J., concurring and dissenting) (emphasis supplied).
Second, the majority discusses at some length the retroactive application of its rule on the use of non-statutory aggravating circumstances to future cases under both direct and collateral review. This case is a direct appeal and I see no reason to render an advisory opinion on retroactivity issues.
Third, I agree with the majority that the admissibility of victim impact evidence during the penalty phase of a capital trial depends upon its relevance to the statutory aggravating cireumstances and to the mitigating civreumstances before the court. As the majority's analysis shows, this frequently will result in such evidence being inadmissible during the penalty phase. The proper time to present victim impact evidence is during the sentencing hearing before the trial court, after the jury has made its recommendation. At that hearing, the trial court is required to offer the victim's representative, if present, an opportunity to make a statement concerning the crime and the sentence. Ind.Code §§ 85-88-1-8(b) and 12(a) (1993)1

. I reject Appellant's contention that the legislature meant to exclude victim impact evidence in *961capital cases by the language in Indiana Code §§ 35-38-1~8.5 and 9 (1993). These provisions relieve a probation department in capital cases of its normal obligations to notify victims of scheduled sentencing hearings and their right to make or submit a statement and to include a victim impact statement in the presentence report. However, these statutes do not prohibit a probation department from giving such notice or including such a statement, nor do they modify the obligation of the trial court to permit a victim's representative present at sentencing to make a statement concerning the crime and the sentence. Ind.Code §§ 35-38-1-8(b) and 12(a).