Court Opinion

ID: 9544056
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:51:38.94009+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:11:52.393950
License: Public Domain

MARTONE, Justice,
concurring.
I agree that the conviction should be affirmed and that, although a close question, a death sentence here could pose a threat to the constitutional validity of Arizona’s narrowly tailored death penalty Statute. Ante, at 859-860. I write separately, however, to clarify the significance of our holding in State v. Ross, 180 Ariz. 598, 886 P.2d 1354 (1994), and the relationship between senselessness and witness elimination.
The majority is concerned that there is a “problem with the witness elimination factor.” Ante, at 858. The perceived problem is that senselessness and witness elimination cannot “logically ... exist at the same time.” Id. It arises, according to the majority, when a trial judge searches for the “only apparent reason” a victim was killed. When there is no apparent reason, the sentencing judge can simultaneously find two things— that the murder was senseless and that the “only apparent reason” for the murder was to eliminate the victim as a witness. This drives the majority’s concern that a court may “double count[] a single aspect of a murder to find an aggravating factor.” Id. at 858, n. 6.
We have not previously been perplexed by the relationship between senselessness and witness elimination. We have not hesitated to find both or allude to them both, and never once suggested the dilemma that troubles the majority. State v. Stanley, 167 Ariz. 519, 528-29, 809 P.2d 944, 953-54 (finding helplessness, senselessness, and witness elimination), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 1014, 112 S.Ct. 660, 116 L.Ed.2d 751 (1991); State v. Correll, 148 Ariz. 468, 481, 715 P.2d 721, 734 (1986) (finding helplessness, senselessness, and witness elimination); State v. Gillies, 142 Ariz. 564, 570, 691 P.2d 655, 661 (1984) (finding savage manner of death, senselessness, and witness elimination), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1059, 105 S.Ct. 1775, 84 L.Ed.2d 834 (1985). We found senselessness in our recent Ross case, but still discussed the merits of witness elimination. That discussion would have been unnecessary if senselessness and witness elimination were mutually exclusive. We do the same here.
But if there had been a problem, Ross solved it. Ross provided a three-pronged test that eliminated the “only apparent reason” or “only reasonably ascertainable motive” test. No longer can a judge find witness elimination simply because there is no reason for a murder. The judge instead must find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that a motive was witness elimination, as defined by Ross. Evidence of senselessness is of a completely different nature and raises an unrelated question—whether the murder was unnecessary to allow a defendant to complete his criminal objective. See State v. Comer, 165 Ariz. 413, 429, 799 P.2d 333, 349 (1990), cert. denied, 499 U.S. 943, 111 S.Ct. 1404, 113 L.Ed.2d 460 (1991). If the objective is robbery, and a killing is unnecessary to achieve that objective, the killing is senseless. If the defendant then kills the storekeeper to retard his identification and apprehension, a court might also find witness elimination. On the other hand, if the objective is witness elimination, as “where the murder victim is a witness to some other crime, and is killed to prevent that person from testifying about the other crime,” Ross, 180 Ariz. at 606, 886 P.2d *525at 1362, then senselessness and witness elimination cannot both be present. It thus depends on the case. Therefore, a sentencing judge can, in some eases, find that a murder was senseless and that a motive was to eliminate the victim as a witness, while in others the judge may not.