Court Opinion

ID: 9859402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 21:27:50.379739+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:46:22.742481
License: Public Domain

HANDLER, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
The majority reverses defendant’s death sentence because the only evidence that converts this murder into a capital crime, *284his confession that he had been hired to kill, was insufficiently corroborated. Although I agree with its conclusion, I write separately for several reasons. I believe that defendant’s guilty plea should be set aside because it was obtained without satisfying the exacting requirements that must govern guilty pleas to capital murder. Further, I believe the standard for determining the admissibility of a capital-murder confession, when used to establish aggravating factors to impose a death sentence, should be more stringent than the conventional standard governing the admissibility of confessions in criminal cases. In addition, the evidence that was used to establish the aggravating factors was, in effect, double-counted, thereby distorting the balancing process. Finally, this case exemplifies the twin problems of unacceptable disproportionality and the absence of guided prosecutorial discretion: The State has prosecuted this defendant for capital murder but has failed to pursue and prosecute the person who hired him to do the killing.
These issues bear comment. In view of the evolving nature of capital-murder jurisprudence, however, I reiterate without further exposition my position that the State’s capital-murder statute, as enacted, interpreted and applied, violates the State’s Constitution. See, e.g., State v. Davis, 116 N.J. 341, 377, 561 A.2d 1082 (1989) (Handler, J., dissenting); State v. Bey (II), 112 N.J. 123, 188-90, 548 A.2d 887 (Handler, J., dissenting).
I.
The Court does not address the validity of defendant’s guilty plea. For reasons previously expressed, I would reverse the guilty plea in this case. See, e.g., State v. Davis, supra, 116 N.J. at 377, 561 A.2d 1082 (Handler, J., dissenting); State v. Gerald, 113 N.J. 40, 154-57, 549 A.2d 792 (1988) (Handler, J., dissenting). The validity of a guilty plea is of such fundamental importance in the context of a capital-murder prosecution that any serious error that impugns its validity must be viewed as plain error on appeal. R. 2:10-2.
*285Rule 3:9-2 provides that a guilty plea is not valid unless the defendant understands the nature of the charges and consequences of the plea. Recently, we stressed that for a plea to be valid, “all material terms and relevant consequences [must] be clearly disclosed, fully understood, and knowingly and voluntarily accepted by the defendant.” State v. Warren, 115 N.J. 433, 444, 558 A.2d 1312 (1989) (citations omitted). However, as I said in Davis with respect to the acceptance of a guilty plea to capital murder, there should be:
a heightened application of each of the major requirements that currently govern the validity of a guilty plea. These relate to the full disclosure and explanation of all material aspects of the plea, the adequacy of the defendant’s knowledge and understanding concerning the basis for and consequences of a guilty plea, and the voluntariness of the plea; all of these relate importantly to the accuracy of the underlying facts that support criminal guilt.
[116 N.J. at 384, 561 A.2d 1082 (citation omitted).]
Under Rule 3:9-2, a defendant in an ordinary criminal case can, and frequently does, supply the factual basis for his plea. However, the Rule creates an exception for capital defendants. Rule 3:9-2 states:
When the defendant is charged with a crime punishable by death, no factual basis shall be required from the defendant before entry of a plea of guilty to a capital offense or to a lesser included offense, provided the court is satisfied from the proofs presented that there is a factual basis for the plea. (Emphasis added.)
The rationale for this singular exception is that a defendant exposed to the death penalty should not be required to state anything that can support an aggravating factor; he need not aid in rendering his own death sentence. See Comment, Supreme Court Committee on Criminal Procedure, reprinted in Pressler, Rules Governing the Courts of the State of New Jersey, 533 (1989).
Nevertheless, here the trial court elicited and relied on defendant’s testimony under oath as the factual basis for the guilty plea to capital murder. Defendant recounted not only the murder itself but his agreement with Franciotti, which became the factual basis for the aggravating factors and capital murder. In its own words, the court accepted the defendant’s *286guilty plea “based on Mr. DiFrisco’s statement.” Our Rules of Practice governing guilty pleas in capital causes bar this procedure.
Further, the defendant apparently did not enter the plea with full understanding. The relationship between a conviction based on a guilty plea and the subsequent sentencing proceeding must be carefully structured and fully explained to a defendant prepared to plead guilty to capital murder. As I emphasized in Davis:
[T]he trial court in a capital case should explain that once it has accepted the plea, the defendant is to be turned over to a jury, which will decide his or her fate. Further, the defendant should be made aware of precisely how the jury reaches its determination. Therefore, the concept of aggravating and mitigating factors, the elements for determining the existence of such factors, the balancing process entailed in their weighing and the standard of proof that applies should also be explained. The defendant should thus be made cognizant of what the State must prove, and is prepared to prove, to establish the aggravating factor(s) alleged in the case, and must be given an adequate basis to consider and determine the likely outcome of the sentencing phase. See [State v. Taylor, 80 N.J. 353, 363, 403 A.2d 889 (1979) ]. Finally, because it is a guilty plea that automatically exposes the defendant to a sentencing trial, the court should also require the State to demonstrate the evidence available to prove aggravating factors.
[State v. Davis, supra, 116 N.J. at 388-89, 561 A.2d 1082 (Handler, J., dissenting) (footnote omitted).]
The Court does not dispute the validity of this standard.
In this case, the trial court did not carefully, accurately or comprehensively review and explain these matters to the defendant. The court is obligated to explain the penal consequences of a guilty plea. See, e.g., State v. Warren, supra, 115 N.J. at 447, 558 A.2d 1312; State v. Taylor, 80 N.J. 353, 363, 403 A.2d 889 (1979); State v. Nichols, 71 N.J. 358, 361, 365 A.2d 467 (1976); R. 3:9-2. In a capital-murder case this must include a reasonably accurate description of what will ensue in the penalty-phase trial. See, e.g., State v. Davis, supra, 116 N.J. at 388-89, 561 A.2d 1082. The explanation of the penal consequences of a guilty plea in a capital case must encompass a description of the evidence, a projection and analysis of its anticipated use, a comprehensive itemization of critical possible *287determinations, and some estimate of the possible or probable consequences.
Here, the court did none of these things. It failed to review the nature of any of the evidence to be introduced as proof of the aggravating factors or explain the standard of proof by which each factor could be established. The court also failed to indicate how this evidence would be applied or the possible determinations and likely consequences that could ensue from the receipt of such evidence. These omissions were critical because the primary evidence of aggravating factors in the case was defendant’s uncorroborated confession. See discussion, infra at 262-270, 571 A.2d at 918-923. Furthermore, the court did not fully explain the balancing process of aggravating and mitigating factors to enable defendant to gauge the likelihood of the death penalty versus life imprisonment.
Perhaps more problematic in this case is the court’s failure to explain to defendant the ramifications of his decision to forego a penalty-phase jury.
The defendant may, of course, waive a jury for the penalty phase. The court should explain the ramifications of such a course. I would think it incumbent upon the Court to explain the twelve-fold reduction in the chance of avoiding the death penalty by foregoing a jury trial. Indeed, the chance may be greater: there is a twelve-fold chance that a single juror may not find the existence of a necessary aggravating factor and, also, the additional twelve-fold chance that a single juror may not find that existing aggravating factors outweigh mitigating factors beyond a reasonable doubt. See, e.g., State v. Biegenwald, 106 N.J. 13, 53-67 [524 A.2d 130] (1987).
[State v. Davis, supra, 116 N.J.- at 388 n. 6, 561 A.2d 1082 (Handler, J., dissenting).]
The trial court did not fully explain to the defendant the significant difference between a trial by jury and a trial by judge to determine whether the death penalty should be imposed.1 The trial court indicated only that jury unanimity *288would be required in the weighing or balancing of aggravating and mitigating factors. The trial court never informed defendant that the jury would be required to be unanimous in its determination of the existence of aggravating factors. State v. Bey (II), supra, 112 N.J at 159, 548 A.2d 887. It informed defendant neither that the jury need not be unanimous with respect to its determination of mitigating factors, id. at 159-160, 548 A.2d 887, nor that an individual juror, in weighing aggravating and mitigating factors, could consider a mitigating factor found by that juror even though it was not found by other jurors, id. at 160, 548 A.2d 887. Most importantly, the court did not explain to the defendant that, after having been instructed with respect to each critical determination it would *289be required to make — determining, successively, the existence of aggravating factors, the existence of mitigating factors, and the comparative weight to be given to aggravating and mitigating factors — the jury would also have to be instructed that its ultimate verdict would result in the imposition of the death penalty or life imprisonment. In other words, the court failed totally to advise the defendant that the jury would be instructed in appropriate form that it would be ultimately responsible for whether the defendant lives or dies. State v. Bey (II), supra, 112 N.J. at 158, 548 A.2d 887. Thus, it is a grave distortion to suggest (as the court did here) that the chances for an acquittal of the death sentence are only 12:1 if tried by a jury compared to a trial by judge; rather the chances would be infinitely greater. See State v. Davis, supra, 116 N.J. at 388 n. 6, 561 A.2d 1082. These indisputably material omissions are fatal to a full understanding of the penal consequences of defendant’s guilty plea. See State v. Warren, supra, 115 N.J. at 447, 558 A.2d 1312; State v. Taylor, supra, 80 N.J. at 363, 403 A.2d 889; State v. Kovack, 91 N.J. 476, 484, 453 A.2d 521 (1982); State v. Nichols, supra, 71 N.J. at 361, 365 A.2d 467.
For these reasons, I would reverse the defendant’s conviction based on the acceptance of his guilty plea.
II.
As noted, on the day of the guilty plea, the court without a jury commenced a penalty trial. The record of that trial discloses the centrality of defendant’s confession to the court’s ultimate determination that the aggravating factors were established beyond a reasonable doubt and, by the same standard of proof, outweighed all mitigating factors, thereby necessitating the sentence of death. The court’s acceptance of defendant’s confession as evidence of these aggravating factors is thus a pivotal issue in this case.
At the penalty trial, defendant took the stand and reiterated his earlier confession. Defendant endeavored to stress that the *290combined effect of his conscience and promises of assistance by the police spurred his confession. Defendant further testified that he had a substantial drug habit since 1982 and owed Franciotti money for drugs at the time Franciotti solicited his services to murder a person “who was about to put [Franciotti] in a jackpot.”
The prosecutor contended that an agreement to commit the murder for $2,500 “rather than to see [Franciotti] go to prison,” constituted the aggravating factors of N.J.S.A. 2C:ll-3c(4)(d) and (f). He also asserted that the murder was an “execution” and thus constituted the aggravating factor of N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(c). The prosecutor denigrated the mitigating factors raised by defendant. He characterized defendant’s confession as a limited form of cooperation, and argued that defendant’s recent willingness to testify against Franciotti did not rise to the level of rendering substantial assistance to the State.
The trial court determined that the State had not proven that the murder was outrageously or wantonly vile, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(c). It did find, however, that the State had proven beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of two aggravating factors: that defendant committed the murder as consideration for the receipt or expectation of receipt of anything of pecuniary value, N.J.S.A. 2C:ll-3c(4)(d), and that defendant committed the murder for the purpose of escaping detection, apprehension, trial, punishment or confinement for another offense committed by the defendant or another, N.J.S.A. 2C:ll-3c(4)(f). While the court did find one mitigating factor, that defendant rendered substantial assistance to the State in the prosecution of another person for the crime of murder, N.J.S.A. 2C:ll-3c(5)(g), the court determined that the aggravating factors outweighed beyond a reasonable doubt the mitigating factor. The court sentenced defendant to death.
Defendant contends that there was insufficient evidence to sustain the imposition of the death penalty because his confession lacked independent corroboration of those circumstances *291that alone served to establish the aggravating factors. The majority agrees in principle with the defendant’s position. Ante at 271-278, 571 A.2d at 924-927. Nevertheless, the Court remands the case for resentencing because it believes that under the corroboration doctrine, there is evidence in the record of this trial that could satisfy such a standard. Ante at 280-281, 571 A.2d at 928-929.
I differ from the Court in two major respects. First, I believe that under both constitutional and fundamental-fairness principles, the general requirement of corroboration of a confession should be more strictly applied to a confession in a capital-murder prosecution, particularly as to the aggravating factors. Second, I believe that, under standards governing corroboration, the evidence in this case is insufficient to establish any of the aggravating factors, and hence defendant should be acquitted of the death sentence.
In general, the corroboration rule is held to require either (1) some evidence independent of the confession that corroborates the corpus delicti — the particular loss, harm or injury, including some criminal culpability — constituting the. crime charged; or (2) some evidence aside from the corpus delicti that tends to bolster or strengthen the trustworthiness of the confession itself; or (3) some degree of both. New Jersey, with the majority of states, demands some degree of both. It requires some independent evidence of the corpus delicti and some evidence beyond the confession itself that enhances its reliability. State v. Lucas, 30 N.J. 37, 56, 152 A.2d 50 (1959).
As observed by the majority, “[t]he aggravating factors serve not just to measure the length of a sentence, but are regarded as ‘essential elements’ of capital murder.” Ante at 270, 571 A.2d at 923. Hence, aggravating factors defining capital murder are functionally equivalent to the essential elements of the crime of capital murder, see State v. Biegenwald, supra, 106 N.J. at 59-60, 524 A.2d 130, and, as determined by the Court, must be considered functionally equivalent to the *292loss, harm or injury — the corpus delicti — that is “‘the substance or foundation of a crime,’ ” ante 270, 571 A.2d at 923 (citation omitted). Without aggravating factors, a homicide is not capital murder. Consequently, aggravating factors constituting capital murder are subject to the corroboration rule.
The historical antecedents of the corroboration rule indirectly support the conclusion that aggravating factors defining capital murder should be subject to corroboration. The corroboration doctrine evolved in a setting that demanded the death penalty for murder. The doctrine developed to overcome “notorious instances” in which an individual could be convicted and executed for murder solely on an unsubstantiated confession, when indeed no murder had been committed. See 7 J. Wigmore, Wigmore on Evidence, § 2070 (Chadboum rev.1978). In contemporary times there is a parallel: Murder can again exact the death penalty. In the context of current capital-murder prosecutions, the concern is that even though a killing occurred, capital murder may not have been committed.
Additionally, the statutory significance of aggravating factors, as enumerated in N.J.S.A. 2C:ll-3c, demonstrates that aggravating as well as mitigating factors encompass concerns that range well beyond the basic question of guilt. Such factors implicate the “character and record of the individual offender and the circumstances of the particular offense.” Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 304, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 2991, 49 L.Ed.2d 944, 961 (1976). They address aspects of criminal culpability that may be more complicated than the binary question of guilt or innocence, but must do so to a degree of certainty equivalent to that employed in determining guilt. The existence of aggravating factors must be found beyond a reasonable doubt. N.J.S.A. 2C:ll-3c(2)(a).
In sum, aggravating factors constitute the essential elements of capital murder. They are proved only by a level of certainty equivalent to that necessary to demonstrate criminal guilt. Hence, when such factors are evidenced solely by a confession, *293they cannot be established without adequate corroboration. See, e.g., People v. Mattson, 37 Cal.3d 85, 94, 207 Cal.Rptr. 278, 283, 688 P.2d 887, 892 (1984) (pursuant to statutory language, corpus delicti of felony-based special circumstances must be proved independently of an accused’s extrajudicial statements).
It is not disputed that the singular aspect of defendant’s confession that pertains to DiFrisco’s arrangement with Fran-ciotti provides the factual basis for the aggravating factors; without these circumstances, the murder is not capital murder. Hence, these factors, as has been pointed out, must be regarded and treated as the distinctive loss, harm or injury that uniquely constitutes the corpus delicti of capital murder. The critical question, then, is whether defendant’s confession to this arrangement — to capital murder — satisfies the doctrine of corroboration.
Confessions are unlike any other type of evidence. The impact they have on a jury is profound.
Because of the heavy weight which a trier of fact is likely to give to a statement of the defendant, the introduction of a confession makes the other aspects of a trial in court superfluous, and the real trial, for all practical purposes, occurs when the confession is obtained.
[McCormick, Evidence, § 148 (2d ed. 1972).]
There remains a genuine danger that our perception of truth will be molded by the existence of a confession alone. Requiring proof of the corpus delicti outside the confession minimizes this danger. See Note, “Proof of the Corpus Delicti Aliunde the Defendant’s Confession,” 103 U.Pa.L.Rev. 638, 658 (1955) (hereafter, “Note”). This consideration is even more powerful when the corroboration requirement is invoked to determine whether a confession alone can justify the imposition of a death sentence.
In this case, the Court departs from the traditional corroboration rule, which, as noted, entails some degree of both independent evidence of the underlying crime and independent evidence that bolsters the trustworthiness of the confession. Supra at *294263, 571 A.2d at 919. The Court is apparently willing to accept only a scintilla of extrinsic evidence as sufficient to establish the crime — that is, the arrangement to kill — and, indeed, subtly indicates that there need be no such evidence if the confession relating to the murder alone is reliable. It says:
The jury (or judge sitting as jury) may consider the presence or absence of any corroborating proofs offered by the State in determining the existence and weight to be accorded the aggravating factors charged. When there is no extrinsic corroboration of the aggravating factors themselves, the jurors must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the confession itself is sufficient to establish the aggravating factors beyond a reasonable doubt.
[Ante at 275-276, 571 A.2d at 925-926 (emphasis added).]
Applying that reasoning to this case, the Court states:
The State need not produce independent proof that Franciotti paid DiFrisco but only “independent proof of facts and circumstances which strengthen or bolster the confession and tend to generate a belief in its trustworthiness.”
[Ante at 273, 571 A.2d 925.]
The Court would find the ambiguous circumstances that DiFrisco and Franciotti were both in jail at some unspecified time, without more, sufficient to corroborate independently the rather bizarre arrangement that constitutes the aggravating factors in this case. It says that because “there was a prior relationship between Franciotti and DiFrisco” and “there was a murder as described by DiFrisco,” there is, in this case, “sufficient corroboration in law.” Ante at 275, 571 A.2d at 926.
It is evident that the Court understands that its new corroboration rule tolerates only a shred of evidence as sufficient to authenticate what otherwise would unquestionably be a legally insufficient confession. It is not simply wrong for the Court to rule that the vague prior relationship in this case is alone sufficient to corroborate a confession to the contract killing: It is unprincipled. The State itself always viewed with extreme skepticism the significance of that alleged prior connection. Investigators interviewed witnesses and consulted law enforcement agencies “to see if there was a connection, to see if Mr. Franciotti was in the mob, as Mr. DiFrisco said he was, whether there were any organized crime connections,” and yet an investigating officer testified that “we could come up with no *295connection between the victim, Mr. Franciotti and Mr. Di-Frisco.” Ante at 272, 571 A.2d at 924 (emphasis added). Further, the State has in no uncertain terms characterized the alleged prior relationship between DiFrisco and Franciotti as wholly inadequate for evidentiary purposes. It took the position that DiFrisco’s confession and the so-called “jailhouse link” was not substantial “enough to prove it to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.” Ante at 262-263, 571 A.2d at 918-919. The Court itself acknowledges that “ ‘the State did not have sufficient evidence to prove a case against Anthony Franciotti’ ...” ante at 264, 571 A.2d at 920, and that “the State has also determined that the only proof that it has — defendant’s confession— even if repeated in court against Franciotti, will not be of sufficient probative value to convict Franciotti,” ante at 268, 571 A.2d at 922 (emphasis added). Further, the Court observes that “there is no congruency between defendant’s statement and the State’s investigative results with respect to the aggravating factors that are essential elements of capital murder____” Ante at 280, 571 A.2d at 928. It notes that “the State’s own investigation of the case has apparently resulted in a conclusion that there is insufficient extrinsic evidence presented of a connection between [DiFrisco and Franciotti] on the date in question to bring the matter before a grand jury,” which, the Court finds, stands “in contrast [to] the sentencing court[’s determination] beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant acted as a hired gun for Franciotti.” Id. at 280, 571 A.2d at 928.
In dismissive words that do not begin to communicate the enormity of this evidentiary contradiction, the Court says merely: “There is a paradox in the proofs.” Ibid. The Court, however, goes well beyond this muffled expression of perplexity over a paradox: It permits the State to take the position that the same evidence is wholly insufficient to be credited by a jury as incriminating evidence of crime by an accomplice and yet sufficient as the basis — the sole basis — for executing a person for the commission of that crime. It insults the values inherent *296in fundamental fairness and the constitutional protections that assure due process and avert cruel and unusual punishments.
The Court thus sanctions the use of the confession that is corroborated only with respect to the killing to bolster the credibility of the confession to the aggravating factors, in effect, parlaying the confession into sufficient evidence of capital murder. I emphatically disagree with the majority’s application of the corroboration rule in this context. Although the Court initially professes that aggravating factors are themselves the corpus delicti of capital murder, the level of corroboration it then suggests will suffice to validate a confession to these factors is even less exacting than the corroboration that suffices to establish the underlying crime of knowing or purposeful murder. The majority’s application of the corroboration rule effectively relegates these aggravating factors to the level of circumstances that merely increase the degree of a crime. See Note, supra, at 654-55.
It should be noted that the Court does not acknowledge that its corroboration rule is a new formulation of the doctrine. That is extremely unfortunate because the new rule lowers the level of proof sufficient to validate a confession. The Court has thus seen fit in this critical application of our standards of criminal justice to weaken, rather than to strengthen, the procedural and substantive protections that surround a defendant charged with capital murder. Moreover, the Court does not envisage that its current rule is applicable only to the use of a confession in a capital-murder prosecution. “The confession here does not make this case different.” Ante at 274, 571 A.2d at 925. Its rule is one of general applicability in the administration of criminal justice. This is both perplexing and ironic because the corroboration rule the Court now adopts thus not only fails to give defendants in capital cases the heightened protections demanded by our Constitution. It actually erodes the protective standards that are applicable generally in the prosecution of criminal cases.
*297Finally, I agree with the majority that in-court confessions should require corroboration to the same extent as extra-judicial confessions. Ante at 278, 571 A.2d at 927. There are major reasons that call for corroboration, particularly the important policy of encouraging comprehensive policework. This particular policy consideration is especially potent in this case, in which, as explained by the Court, ante at 267-269, 571 A.2d at 922, there appears to be questionable policework concerning any investigative pursuit of Franciotti. A corroboration rule that suffers or condones such dubious law enforcement conduct should not be encouraged.
These considerations would be equally germane with respect to in- or out-of-court confessions. Arguably, an in-court confession may generate an aura of truthfulness that may not surround an extra-judicial confession. See, e.g., 7 J. Wigmore, supra, § 2071 at 524 (“as to the application of the rule, it remains only to note that it has of course no bearing upon an infra judicial confession, which is in effect a plea of guilty.”); Manning v. United States, 215 F.2d 945 (10th Cir.1954). Still, a confession in testimonial form, not otherwise corroborated, should not be more readily accepted. This is so particularly when the absence of corroboration reflects inadequate police work and suggests prosecutorial dissembling and nonaccounta-bility; and, more significantly, it implicates the most important aspect of criminal guilt, that which bears directly on the imposition of society’s most extreme sanction — the death penalty. In an ordinary criminal prosecution, perhaps, the absence of corroboration of an in-court confession may not always be critical. Nevertheless, in the context of capital-murder prosecutions, adequate corroboration should be a constant concern and must, as a matter of fundamental fairness, be a precondition to the evidential use of a confession whether or not obtained in testimonial form in court.
We have repeatedly adhered to the principle of stricter procedures of capital-murder prosecutions. “In the. context of the death penalty, where the demands for fairness and accuracy *298are heightened, the principles of consistency and reliability rise to constitutional dimension.” State v. Ramseur, 106 N.J. 123, 190, 524 A.2d 188 (1987). Where the words of the defendant are used to sustain death, more rather than less corroborating evidence must be required in order to justify the imposition of death as a sentence for the crime.
Accordingly, I would vacate the death penalty on grounds of insufficient evidence of the aggravating factors.
III.
The vice of using an uncorroborated confession that renders a homicide capital murder has been prejudicially exacerbated in this case. The uncorroborated circumstances that constitute the sole factual basis for the aggravating factors have not only been improperly admitted into evidence, but they have also, in effect, been double-counted. This issue, though not raised, cannot be ignored.
The danger of double-counting is present when several aggravating factors refer to the same aspect of a defendant’s crime. See, e.g., Bey (II), supra, 112 N.J. at 176, 548 A.2d 887 (identifying jurisdictions that do not permit simultaneous presentation of the aggravating factors that murder was committed for pecuniary gain and that murder occurred during the course of a robbery). I believe that the rationality of capital sentences is undermined by the risk that allegedly distinct aggravating factors are based on identical evidence. See State v. Ramseur, supra, 106 N.J. at 392 n. 21, 524 A.2d 188 (Handler, J., dissenting); State v. Bey (II), supra, 112 N.J. at 221-22, 548 A.2d 887 (Handler, J., dissenting). The Court has acknowledged that “jury consideration of two aggravating factors based on identical evidence enhances the likelihood of arbitrary imposition of the death sentence.” State v. Rose, 112 N.J. 454, 525, 548 A.2d 1058 (1988).
In the case sub judice, the trial court found both c(4)(d) and c(4)(f), and further found that they outweighed the sole mitigat*299ing factor, c(5)(g). Both these aggravating factors, i.e., killing for pay and to avoid detection, clearly overlap. The trial court’s finding means not only that did Franciotti pay defendant to commit the murder, but that Franciotti did so to avoid detection. It thus appears that the purposes for this murder are so intertwined as to be incident to each other.
In Rose, the alleged overlap was between aggravating factor c(4)(f) (murder to escape detection) and c(4)(h) (murder of public servant), even though the former related to the defendant’s motive, and the latter to the status of the victim. 112 N.J. at 454, 548 A 2d 1058. The jury in Rose was allowed to find that the murder was aggravated both because defendant murdered to escape detection and because he murdered the person whose duty it was to detect him. At least the evidence in Rose related to separate phenomena, motive and conduct. In this case, the overlap of the aggravating factors is even more pronounced because each aggravating factor related only to defendant’s motive. Defendant provided essentially the same basis for supporting either of these aggravating factors; although he spoke of receiving money for the murder, he simultaneously stated that he murdered as a “favor” for a man that he “kind of looked up to” and did not want to “see ... go to prison.”
The aggravating factor scheme under our current statutory structure does not reasonably accommodate this situation, in which defendant’s motives are clearly indissolubly mixed. Justice Robertson addressed this schematic shortcoming in Wiley v. State, 484 So.2d 339 (Miss.), cert. den., 479 U.S. 906, 107 S.Ct. 304, 93 L.Ed.2d 278, reh’g den., 479 U.S. 999, 107 S.Ct. 604, 93 L.Ed.2d 604 (1986). He made the trenchant observation that “[i]n the end, the fallacy of our rule is its failure to recognize that murders are aggravated by a defendant’s conduct, not by statutory language____ A single legally indivisible act of the defendant may rationally aggravate a murder but once.” Id. at 358 (Robertson, J., concurring) (emphasis in original). The submission of separate and discrete factors implies that each factor that is found legitimately can escalate *300the degree of criminal severity and culpability. The inescapable consequence of allowing the sentencing body to extrapolate two factors from one lump of evidence is to inflate artificially the evidence that is the basis for such factors.2 In this case, the single evidentiary basis for the aggravating factors is that Franciotti sought to escape detection by paying defendant to murder the victim. One simply cannot parse the reason or motive for defendant’s conduct to aggravate the murder twice. The defendant acted the way he did precisely because Franciotti wanted to escape detection. The distinction between motives is simply too attenuated in the circumstances of this case to allow the accumulation of both aggravating factors.
Moreover, the record itself suggests that there was double-counting. In considering whether the murder in this case satisfied aggravating factor c(4)(c) because it was done as an “execution,” the court concluded that this was really only an aspect of aggravating factor e(4)(d), murder for hire. The trial court explained:
I find beyond a reasonable doubt that the following aggravating factors exist: That Mr. DiFrisco killed for money at the request of another. Two. That Mr. DiFrisco committed the murder so that Potcher would not, in the defendant’s words, would not rat on Anthony Franciotti and his associates. I do not find the existence of the aggravating factor listed as number one in the “Notice of Aggravating Factors” because that is encompassed in the commission of the murder for a consideration.
•It defies reason, logic and fairness to conclude that the execution of the victim “is encompassed in the commission of murder for a consideration” but that the murder to enable Franciotti to escape detection is not. Indeed, the latter seems even more deeply embedded in defendant’s blurred motivation.
Further, the weight accorded to the aggravating factors may have been otherwise distorted. Aggravating factor c(4)(c) is *301clearly inapplicable in defendant’s case,3 though not for the reasons stated by the trial court. Nevertheless, the trial court believed that the evidence relating to c(4)(c), the “execution” of the victim, was encompassed in the aggravating factor of c(4)(d). Hence, the inference that the incorporation of c(4)(c) into c(4)(d) served to increase the weight accorded to (c)(4)(d) cannot be dispelled.
The Court has acknowledged the potential for prejudice in such overlapping factors based merely on the same evidence, but has determined that this can be cured by a limiting instruction to the jury that will “prevent it from giving undue weight to the number of factors____” Bey (II), supra, 112 N.J. at 176, 548 A.2d 887. The jury must “not assign inordinate weight to the facts that support multiple factors.” Rose, supra, 112 N.J. at 527, 548 A.2d 1058. I remain of the view that this standard is illusory and totally ineffective to prevent the artificial exaggeration of the legal significance of underlying evidence.4 *302Nevertheless, in this case, there was no jury and, obviously, no such limiting instructions. Thus, it is virtually impossible to determine how the trial court, lacking the standards established by this Court in Bey II and Rose, dealt with this problem.
These are additional, convincing reasons that require the reversal of defendant’s death sentence.
IV!
A final concern raised by this appeal but not directly confronted by the Court is the disproportionality of the death penalty evidenced by the failure of the State to prosecute Franciotti. The failure to prosecute Franciotti, or even to explain this failure, exemplifies the flaw that is inherent in the current implementation of the State’s capital-murder statute, the absence of uniform standards to provide guided prosecutorial discretion in the prosecution of capital-murder defendants.
This serious deficiency in the statute is not a recent discovery. It has been noted and memorialized by the Court consistently throughout its decisions. E.g., State v. Ramseur, supra, 106 N.J. at 329, 524 A.2d 188 (1987); State v. Koedatich, 112 N.J. 225, 250-58, 548 A.2d 939 (1988). The absence of *303guided prosecutorial discretion was implicit in State v. Matulewicz, 115 N.J. 191, 557 A.2d 1001 (1989). I observed in that case that the standard devised by the Court in connection with the prosecutor’s selection of aggravating factors failed “to check the virtually unlimited discretion afforded prosecutors in choosing to charge a defendant with capital murder.” 115 N.J. at 206, 557 A.2d 1001 (Handler, J., concurring). I stressed:
The virtually unfettered power of prosecutors to select who is to be prosecuted for capital murder further exacerbates the risk of arbitrary enforcement of the death penalty and creates a major flaw in this statutory scheme.
[115 N.J. at 207, 557 A.2d 1001 (Handler, J., concurring) (citations omitted).]
No one disputes for a moment that there is little to separate Franciotti from DiFricso in terms of culpability. Our capital-murder statute does not distinguish between the two in terms of culpability. There are some who would find the “hit man” in a for-hire murder more reprehensible than the contractor; others might consider the one who pays for the killing the more revolting.
In the relatively brief history of our current death-penalty law there have been capital prosecutions of defendants on both sides of a contract killing. See, e.g., Bienen, Weiner, Denno, Allison & Mills, “The Reimposition of Capital Punishment in New Jersey: The Role of Prosecutorial Discretion,” 41 Rutgers L. Rev. 27 (1988) (Public Defender’s Preliminary Report discussed by the Court in State v. Koedatich, supra, 112 N.J. at 256, 548 A.2d 939) [hereinafter “Reimposition”]. The relatively scant data compiled so far suggest that there is inconsistency and disparity in the capital-murder statute’s treatment of defendants charged with these aggravating factors. “Reimposition,” supra, 41 Rutgers L. Rev. at 251-52, 263-83 (Tables 34-50). The absence of guided prosecutorial discretion in this case exemplified by the unexplained failure to prosecute Franciotti is another glaring example of arbitrariness and disproportionality.
These concerns are not whimsical or theoretical. During the penalty phase of the trial, the trial court itself expressed grave misgivings over the State’s failure to prosecute Franciotti. The *304prosecutor stated that consideration of Franciotti was “not part of this case.” Prior to summation by the State at the penalty phase, the trial court interjected the following remarks:
Of course, I cannot tell you what your summation should contain, just as I cannot direct the Prosecutor’s Office to present a matter to the Grand Jury. I recognize that there is a separation of powers, a constitutional separation of powers between the duties of the executive and the judiciary and the legislature. I am fully mindful, so I am not going to do it. But I am sure you anticipate the question that perplexes me. And when I say you, Mr. Bogdanski, I don’t mean Mr. Bogdanski but I mean the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office. The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office presented the defendants’ voluntary confession to the Grand Jury and thereby procured an indictment and thereafter the Prosecutor’s office filed aggravating factors asking for the imposition of capital punishment. Your witnesses, Officers Kukk, Saunders and Kennedy, have all testified that they believe Mr. DiFrisco’s confession. Whoever made the decision to prosecute must have believed it. And indeed whoever decided to file the aggravating factors which result in capital punishment must have believed it.
The Grand Jury found probable cause.
If your office can ask for the imposition of the death penalty based upon the truthfulness of defendant’s statements, isn’t it an exercise in cynicism, in absolute cynicism, sir, not to present that evidence in which the belief is so strong and abiding to a Grand Jury so that the Franciottis of this world will not be free to go around in society hatching the evil plans for the killings of others and allowing them to go untried?
And although this may not make any difference in my considerations, and this is by no means a reflection of what this Court intends to do, would not the imposition of the death penalty weaken this case or the case against Franciotti? What should anybody who is sentenced to death even bother to testify?
And I realize that there is no reason why the Court should not do its duty simply because it believes that someone else is less than zealous in the performance of their’s.
This Court’s professed general concern about the impact of unguided prosecutorial discretion and proportionality in the imposition of the death sentence is alarmingly understated in this case. Eeferring to the prosecutorial decision to obtain the death penalty against DiFrisco and to leave Franciotti untouched, the Court observes diffidently that “we may surmise that not all is known about this case,” ante at 269, 571 A.2d at 922. The failure to prosecute Franciotti, or even to explain *305this failure, suggests the arbitrary and capricious nature of the prosecutor’s decision to prosecute DiFrisco.
I reiterate a comment made in Matulewicz:
Even more problematic ... is the absence of uniform statewide standards to guide prosecutors in making such a momentous determination. Without such uniform standards to guide the selection process, the arbitrary enforcement of the death penalty is inevitable because the very pool of people selected to endure a capital trial at the initial stage of the prosecution is an arbitrarily-composed lot, reflecting determinations by individual prosecutors that may be conscientious but are nonetheless often highly subjective and speculative.
[115 N.J. at 207-08, 557 A.2d 1001 (Handler, J., concurring) (citation omitted).]
It is disturbing that the Court is willing to condone the continued absence of uniform standards to judge prosecutorial decisions to prosecute a homicide as capital murder and to accept on remand the prosecutor’s ex post facto explanation of the reasons that prompted his decision to leave Franciotti alone. The prosecutor’s explanation, we know already, is unfocused and implausible. The prosecutor maintained that DiFrisco refused to cooperate and “stonewalled” the investigation of Fran-ciotti and, further, that DiFrisco’s Franciotti story is unbelievable. The trial court eviscerated the prosecutor’s explanation: it found that defendant rendered substantial assistance to the State in the prosecution of another person for the crime of murder sufficient to constitute a mitigating factor under c(5)(g), and that DiFrisco’s version of events is believable — indeed, is so convincing that he deserves to die.
In the current posture of this case, defendant’s prosecution for capital murder and his death sentence constitute an intolerable example of disproportionality engendered by the absence of guided prosecutorial discretion and, I add, prosecutorial accountability.
Y.
For the reasons stated herein, and my belief that the capital-murder statute is invalid, I would vacate defendant’s guilty plea, reverse defendant’s conviction for murder, and reverse the death sentence.
HANDLER, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part.
For affirmance in part, reversal in part and remandment —Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices CLIFFORD, POLLOCK, O’HERN, GARIBALDI and STEIN — 6.

The trial court’s explanation was as follows:
THE COURT: Now, do you understanding that although you are entering a plea of guilty to murder, although you are about the enter that plea of *288guilty to murder at this time, Mr. DiFrisco, that there has to be another hearing to decide what the sentence shall be?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: And do you further understand that if this Court should find beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors, that this Court could impose the death penalty?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: And in your discussions with Mr. DeLuca have you considered the fact that you are leaving the decision to this Court rather than to twelve jurors?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: And you realize, of course, that the twelve jurors, each of them, all twelve would have to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors in order for the Court to impose the death penalty?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: And do you realize that if only one of them were not so convinced, that this Court could not impose the death penalty?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: And you are willing to rely upon one person rather than twelve, Mr. DiFrisco, where you have a possibility that one of those twelve would exempt you from the death penalty?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: You have thought this over carefully?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: And you still wish to plead guilty?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.

It should be noted that "no one doubts that the side with the largest number of ‘circumstances’ has a practical advantage before the sentencing jury.” State v. Wiley, supra, 484 So.2d at 357 (Robertson, J., concurring).

Under this Court's opinion in State v. Ramseur, 106 N.J. 123, 524 A.2d 188 (1987), an opinion available to the trial court at the time of defendant’s trial, it is clear that defendant’s actions were not depraved in the statutory sense of the word, and there is no evidence that defendant "intendfedj to inflict pain, harm, and suffering — in addition to intending death.” Id. at 208, 524 A.2d 188 (emphasis in original). Comparison of the facts of the0case sub judice and those in Rose further compels this conclusion. In Rose, the Court noted that:
Aside from evidence that defendant has fired the shotgun and was knowledgeable about its capacity to inflict devastating injury, there was no proof that defendant’s intention was to cause Officer Garaffa to endure pain and suffering, rather than to kill him. Although the State argues that a shotgun fired at the abdomen, rather than at a more vital organ, is likely to result in pain and suffering prior to death, this fact alone cannot be sufficient to prove defendant’s intention to inflict severe pain and suffering prior to death.
[Rose, supra, 112 N.J. at 531, 548 A.2d 1058.]
However, in this case the evidence indicates only that defendant intended to kill quickly.

I observed in Rose:
Try to imagine the effect of this instruction from the perspective of a rational juror. This juror will be instructed that he or she will be conducting a weighing process, in which the jury will be asked to enumer*302ate certain aspects of the crime deemed by the legislature to "aggravate" it; the inevitable implication of this task is that the degree of aggravation of the crime increases with the number of these presumably separate circumstances that are found to exist. This implication is undermined where the aggravating element underlying two factors is identical. The Court recognizes this, so the juror will now be instructed, in essence; "Look. We want you to be aware that even though these two circumstances may exist, you have considered the same facts twice. You are allowed to do this, but we want you to know that you are doing it. Do not give those factors undue weight.” A rational juror, confronted with this charge, may well wonder what is meant by "undue weight.” Does undue weight consist in giving the second factor any weight at all? Giving both full weight? Giving both three-quarters the weight each would have if considered alone? Giving one full weight and the other half? Does not the fact that there are two circumstances rather than one increase the degree of aggravation?
[Rose, supra, 112 N.J. at 575-76, 548 A.2d 1058.]