Court Opinion

ID: 9534584
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:41:10.618216+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:31:57.470432
License: Public Domain

CORCORAN, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in this court’s affirmation of defendant’s convictions and robbery and kidnapping sentences. I dissent, however, from the majority’s reduction of defendant’s first degree murder sentence because I do not agree that defendant proved the existence of the mitigating circumstance of duress. Nor do I believe that the remaining mitigating circumstances outweigh the aggravating circumstance of cruelty.
As stated by the majority, the § 13-703(G)(2) mitigating circumstance is established only if a defendant is under unusual and substantial duress at the time of his crime. See State v. Rossi I, 146 Ariz. 359, 367, 706 P.2d 371, 379 (1985). Although the record establishes that Senior often beat his children when he was drunk, it also indicates that these beatings occurred when defendant and his brothers were young and their mother was still living with Senior. For example, Ms. Cardenas testified that both defendant and Senior told her that Senior beat his children when they were young. Dolores Herrera testified that she left Senior and moved to Texas from Phoenix because Senior beat her and her children when he was drunk. Defendant moved to Texas to live with his mother when he was about 10 or 12 years old. Although he occasionally lived with Senior in the interim, defendant did not move back to Phoenix and live with Senior permanently until April of 1988 — two months before the deputy’s murder. There is no evidence that Senior beat defendant during that time.
I believe, therefore, that the balance of the evidence does not indicate that defendant committed murder under unusual and substantial duress, nor does it indicate that Senior coerced defendant into committing an act contrary to his free will. See Wallace I, 151 Ariz. at 369-70, 728 P.2d at 239-40. Defendant did not prove the existence of the A.R.S. § 13-703(G)(2) mitigating circumstance by a preponderance of the evidence.
*402Furthermore, when balancing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the majority considers the effect of defendant’s alcohol consumption on the day of the murder, as well as defendant’s “borderline” I.Q. However, these factors should not be considered as mitigating circumstances. There is no evidence in the record that defendant was intoxicated when he shot Deputy Marconnet, and significant evidence indicates that defendant both appreciated the wrongfulness of his conduct and could conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. In addition, the only evidence tending to support a conclusion of mental impairment is that defendant has a “borderline” I.Q. The majority, therefore, bases its intoxication and mental impairment considerations on mere conjecture.
Finally, with respect to the majority’s citation of State v. Jimenez, 165 Ariz. 444, 799 P.2d 785 (1990), this case is easily distinguished from Jimenez. The Jimenez court reduced the defendant’s death sentence to life imprisonment because of “the severity of defendant’s mental illness, combined with the substantial and relevant factor of defendant’s young age [17 years, 2 months] and borderline intelligence level affecting his intellectual maturity____” 165 Ariz. at 460, 799 P.2d at 801. In so doing, the court explicitly affirmed the trial court’s finding that the defendant’s “capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law was significantly impaired at the time of the offense____” Jimenez, 165 Ariz. at 456, 799 P.2d at 797. This finding was supported by evidence provided by no fewer than 9 expert witnesses, whose diagnoses ranged from schi-zotypal personality to “the paranoid schizophrenic with borderline intelligence who hears command voices and had no mental capacity at all to commit this crime.” Id. In addition, there was expert testimony that the defendant was functioning in the “borderline range of intelligence.” The only similarity between defendant and Jimenez is that they both have “borderline” intelligence. Thus, Jimenez provides no support for the majority’s conclusion.
Because no evidence in the record supports the majority’s duress finding, or its consideration of intoxication and mental impairment in its aggravation/mitigation balancing, I would affirm the defendant’s death sentence. The existing mitigation does not outweigh the severe physical abuse and emotional anguish suffered by the deputy at the hands of defendant and his family.
MOELLER, Y.C.J., concurs.
NOTE: Justices THOMAS A. ZLAKET and FREDERICK J. MARTONE did not participate in the determination of this matter.