Court Opinion

ID: 6781516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-21 00:56:35.219771+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:02:52.583957
License: Public Domain

Pfeifer, J.,
concurring. We are charged to independently weigh each sentence of death. Among the factors we consider are whether the death sentence is appropriate and proportionate. When petty theft (for that is what taking $150 is) elevates a murder to a felony-murder capital offense, I believe a death sentence is not appropriate. See Rosen, Felony Murder and the Eighth Amendment Jurisprudence of Death (1990), 31 B.C.L.Rev. 1103; Ledewitz, The New Role of Statutory Aggravating Circumstances in American Death Penalty Law (1984), 22 Duq.L.Rev. 317. I could not with a good conscience have affirmed a death sentence based solely on the aggravated-robbery specification.
Here, however, there is a second felony-murder specification, which was proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Based on that specification, the death sentence imposed is both appropriate and proportionate. Accordingly, I concur with the majority opinion, with respect to the convictions and the death sentence.