Court Opinion

ID: 9482393
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:48:49.379097+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:57.610401
License: Public Domain

FLOYD R. GIBSON, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting from the denial of rehearing.
I respectfully dissent from the panel’s decision to deny rehearing in this case. The Supreme Court’s decision in Walton reinforces my beliefs as expressed in my dissenting opinion in this case. See Moore, 904 F.2d at 1234-36 (F. Gibson, Sr. J., dissenting).
I find Walton supportive of my earlier view that the Nebraska Supreme Court has provided sufficient guidance to prevent the arbitrary imposition of the death penalty. See Moore, 904 F.2d at 1234-35 (F. Gibson, Sr. J., dissenting) (citing cases). In Walton, the Court approved the Arizona Supreme Court’s “statement that a crime is committed in an especially ‘depraved’ manner when the perpetrator ‘relishes the murder, evidencing debasement or perversion,’ or ‘shows an indifference to the suffering of the victim and evidences a sense of pleasure’ in the killing.” Walton, 110 S.Ct. at 3058 (quoting State v. Walton, 159 Ariz. 571, 587, 769 P.2d 1017, 1033 (1989)). The Court also expressed its continuing adherence to Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242, 96 S.Ct. 2960, 49 L.Ed.2d 913 (1976), see Walton, 110 S.Ct. at 3058, wherein a plurality of the Court approved Florida’s judicial definition of an “ ‘especially heinous, atrocious or cruel’ ” crime as a “ ‘conscienceless or pitiless crime which is unnecessarily torturous to the victim.’ ” Proffitt, 428 U.S. at 255-56, 96 S.Ct. at 2968 (quoting State v. Dixon, 283 So.2d 1, 9 (Fla.1973), cert. denied sub nom. Hunter v. Florida, 416 U.S. 943, 94 S.Ct. 1950, 40 L.Ed.2d 295 (1974)). Though state courts must strive to limit the sentencing body’s discretion, they are not required to (and probably cannot) eliminate all subjective considerations. Aggravating factors need not be defined with “mathematical precision;” they need only be defined sufficiently to provide “meaningful guidance to the sentencer.” Walton, 110 S.Ct. at 3058. Therefore, our analysis should not be based on individual words, but on the state courts’ pronouncements taken as a whole.
The Nebraska Supreme Court, prior to Moore’s sentencing, had limited subsection d “ ‘to those situations where depravity is apparent to such an extent as to obviously offend all standards of morality and intelligence.’ The standard encompasses acts which are totally and senselessly bereft of any regard for human life.” State v. Stewart, 197 Neb. 497, 522-23, 250 N.W.2d 849, 864 (1977) (quoting State v. Simants, 197 Neb. 549, 565-67, 250 N.W.2d 881, 891, cert. denied 434 U.S. 878, 98 S.Ct. 231, 54 L.Ed.2d 158 (1977)). The court’s attempt to label various aspects of Nebraska’s scheme as “objective” or “subjective” based on the presence of certain adverbs and adjectives, see Moore 904 F.2d at 1230, has resulted in unnecessary semantic endeavors; after all, the standards approved in Walton contain adverbs, adjectives, and other words of subjective meaning.
The basis for my dissent is further supported by the factual circumstances of this case. Moore killed two blameless and hapless cab drivers in less than one week. On both occasions, the killings were planned as part of a larger scheme to rob the victim-drivers. Moore called taxis from a phone booth, then hid nearby so that he could “determine whether the driver would be a suitable victim, i.e., not too young, since the defendant stated that it was easier for him to shoot an older man rather than a younger man nearer his own age.” State v. Moore, 210 Neb. 457, 461, 316 N.W.2d 33, 37 (1982). If the driver was “too old,” Moore simply did not identify himself as the fare. If the driver was not “too old,” Moore carried out his preconceived plan to rob and murder the driver. If a senseless *899murder for lucre could ever be deemed cruel and atrocious, certainly this is such a murder.
After comparing the Court-approved formulations to the Nebraska Supreme Court’s definitions, I fail to see any constitutional vagueness or deficiency in the Nebraska law. If Arizona’s and Florida’s judicial narrowing passes constitutional muster, so too should Nebraska’s. For these reasons, I believe rehearing should be granted so that we can further consider this case in light of Walton and Lewis.