Court Opinion

ID: 9682512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:12:26.800669+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:39.816124
License: Public Domain

Darrell Hickman, Justice, concurring. This is the first capital case in which we have actually had to compare the propriety of the death sentence with the sentence in other cases. In none of those we have approved are there any candidates for legal mercy — they deserved the death penalty without question for their particular crimes. That is not the case here, not if we abide by the majority’s decision in Collins v. State, 261 Ark. 195, 548 S.W.2d 106 (1977), cert. denied 434 U.S. 878 (1977). In Collins, we abandoned the notion there must be a legal mistake in order to reduce a sentence in a death case. We made a pact, so to speak, that we would, on our own, make certain the death penalty was not the result of passion, prejudice or excessive under the circumstances. We have to keep that pact as a matter of integrity. I concur only to point out that I disagree to that extent with the dissent. That the defendant did not pull the trigger is not always a determinative factor — it may be an appropriate reason or not to reduce the death penalty, depending on the circumstances.