Court Opinion

ID: 9739098
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:08:44.128593+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:10.008735
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
concurring.
In this case the jury, after convicting appellant of two counts of murder and two counts of felony murder and hearing the additional evidence at the sentencing hearing, recommended life for codefendant Nicksich but was unable to render a penalty recommendations as to appellant Roche, Jr. When there is no such penalty recommendation by the fury, the statute requires the court to "discharge the jury and proceed as if the hearing had been to the court alone." LC. 85-50-2-9(f). I do not agree with the majority that this proscription requires that "no meaning" be given to the failure to make a recommendation. The quandary of the jury represents at least the sentiment of one conscientious juror, who survived voir dire, who heard the shocking evidence of sudden injury and death, who voted for conviction, and finally whose conscience could not support imposition of the death penalty. In my opinion, that sentiment cannot rationally be rejected as a mitigating circumstance as falling within the catch-all, "I.C. 85-50-2-9(C)(8) Any other cireumstances appropriate for consideration." The weight of it is not great, falling I would say in the low range. I agree, however, that the mitigation claims that appellant acted under the domination of Niksich and that appellant was less culpable than Niksich are properly rejected as insufficiently supported.
Here, the trial judge found to exist the mitigator of no significant history of prior criminal conduct. This mitigator is in this case in the low range. Appellant was convicted of burglary in 1982 at age 20, and received a prison sentence of ten years. He was released on parole in March 1989, and committed these offenses fourteen months later in May 1991. According to his own testimony at trial, after release he was conducting three or four drug sales a week from his home, used alcohol and various drugs to excess, and possessed several guns, all in violation of his parole.
The trial court also concluded that appellant's traumatic childhood and resulting psychiatric treatment during puberty together with his addiction to drugs and alcohol constituted a mitigating circumstance. I agree and accord it weight in the middle range.
Here, these three mitigators must be weighed against the two aggravators found to exist by the trial court, namely the intentional killing during a robbery, and the double killing in the episode. I.C. 35-50-2-9(b)(1) and (b)(8). This type of double killing where the intent to kill is present is of the highest range. I find both aggravators to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, the total value of the three mitigating circumstances to be outweighed by it, and the death penalty appropriate.
KRAHULIK, J., concurs.