Court Opinion

ID: 9712970
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:04:07.581022+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:15.515840
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
concurring in result.
Appellant was convicted on three separate counts of murder, which separately charged the killing of first Wentland by stabbing, then Moore by stabbing and shooting and finally Voge by shooting. All three killings were on the same morning within approximately a two hour period and at different locations on the south side of Indianapolis. The jury recommended death for the killing of Moore and for the killing of Voge. The trial judge imposed death twice, once for the killing of Moore and again for the killing of Voge.
The lone specific aggravator involved in each is L.C. 35-50-2-9(b)(8) which states that "[the defendant has committed another murder, at any time, regardless of whether the defendant has been convicted of that other murder." This aggravator is applicable in cases involving double or multiple murders for which the defendant is tried in a single proceeding. Hough v. State (1990), Ind., 560 N.E.2d 511.
The trial court specifically found that it had been proved beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant "knowingly and intentionally" killed each of the three men. With respect to the aggravators, the trial court found that it had been proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the murder of Voge had been preceded by the "knowing and intentional killing" of Moore, and that the murder of Moore had been preceded by the "knowing and intentional killing" of Went-land.
The court found a single mitigating factor, namely that appellant had held steady employment. The record, including appellant's confession, evidence of his admissions of guilt to others, the testimony of appellant's employer and much corroborating physical evidence, support these findings and the conclusion that the killings of Voge and Moore were motivated by a desire to eliminate them as witnesses who might provide evidence against him in the killing of Wentland.
There was evidence that appellant was an alcoholic and that he had a considerable amount to drink on this day. However, the evidence does not command the conclusion that his level of intoxication at the time of his killing of Moore and Voge was entitled to weight as a mitigating circumstance. Psychiatric examination revealed no mental disease or defect. Appellant was twenty-two years old and had no significant history of prior criminal conduct. However, this mitigator is reduced to the lower range by the evidence that within the year immediately preceding these killings, he often armed himself with his hunting knife or his sawed off shotgun, and menaced his acquaintances with both. He once held his gun to the head of Moore and threatening to kill him, and he once pointed the gun at his girl friend in her apartment and deliberately fired it at her, missing her intentionally and then beating her.
Appellant appeals from the sentencing decision of the trial court, specifically claiming that the Judge ignored significant mitigating evidence, including evidence of:
1. his interest and abilities in drawing and writing.
2. his generosity such as helping Kim Voils to pay the rent.
8. the loss of his father.
4. his genuine remorse for these incidents.
I find mitigating weight in the low range in the first suggested category and none in the remaining three. Appellant was receiving sexual favors from Voils at the time he provided her money, the loss of his father was remote in time to this criminal conduct, and there is insufficient evidence in the record to support a finding of the existence of genuine remorse.
In sum, the weight of the aggravator in each of these two cases, ie., in the case of the killing of Moore and the killing of Voge, is at a high range, while the miti-gators together rise no higher than medium range. I therefore find that the total mitigating circumstances are outweighed by the aggravating circumstance in each *223case, and that the sentences of death as envisioned in the statute are appropriate.