Court Opinion

ID: 9776591
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:39:39.543984+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:39.874028
License: Public Domain

BLACKMAR,’Chief Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the affirmance of the conviction, and join in the comments in the principal opinion relating to briefing. I am not satisfied, however, that this is the kind of case in which the death sentence is appropriate. In the absence of any articulated standards for the exercise of our responsibility for proportionality review under § 565.035, RSMo 1986, I am unwilling to concur in the affirmance of the death sentence. I find it easier to vote to mitigate the death sentence because the jury was unwilling to impose the death penalty, and left sentencing to the judge.
In some death sentence cases, the defendant has carried out a planned killing for his own purposes. See State v. Leisure, 749 S.W.2d 366 (Mo. banc 1988); State v. Gilmore, 697 S.W.2d 172 (Mo. banc 1985); State v. Laws, 661 S.W.2d 526 (Mo. banc *7191983); and, of the cases cited in the principal opinion as comparable, State v. Sloan, 756 S.W.2d 503 (Mo. banc 1988); State v. Milton Griffin, 756 S.W.2d 475 (Mo. banc 1988). To me, these are the most aggravated of the death penalty cases.
Others relied on in the principal opinion are characterized by the wanton, violent and outrageous conduct of the defendant. State v. Sidebottom, 753 S.W.2d 915 (Mo. banc 1988); State v. Lashley, 667 S.W.2d 712 (Mo. banc 1984); State v. Battle, 661 S.W.2d 487 (Mo. banc 1983). Those cases are more comparable to this one, but they seem to me to be more outrageous than this case. I note the following circumstances: (1) this defendant was 18 years of age; (2) the altercation grew out of a drunken spree; (3) there is no indication that killing was contemplated when the defendant and his companions started out on their course of robbery and violence. The principal opinion properly exposes the gory details, but any deliberate killing can be described in terms of the blood shed. There is no articulation of a standard to distinguish this case from other cases of first degree murder.
The plural killings certainly weigh in favor of a death sentence. Yet juries not infrequently have assessed life sentences in cases in which more than one person has been killed.1 The plural robberies are also an indication in favor of a death sentence, but the robberies here involved seem impulsive and heavily fortified by spirits. There is no robbery in which the robbers considered from the beginning that it would be necessary to kill the victim, as there was in State v. Johns, 679 S.W.2d 253 (Mo. banc 1984), and State v. Jones, 749 S.W.2d 356 (Mo. banc 1988). Nor is there a crime spree reminiscent of State v. Kenley, 693 S.W.2d 79 (Mo. banc 1985).
The Court has never rested easy with its responsibility for proportionality review. The early eases regularly affirmed death sentences on the basis that there was nothing to compare.2 The later cases are prone to search the books for cases presenting one or more comparable circumstances, following which there is a routine affirmance. I do not believe that this is what was contemplated by the legislature when it mandated proportionality review as a means of selecting the cases in which the ultimate penalty is to be exacted. The Court has proceeded by hunch. My hunch is that the death sentence in this case is out of line with other cases in which death has been decreed.
The conviction of first degree murder should be affirmed. Because of the absence of standards for proportionality review, I would reduce the sentence to life imprisonment without probation or parole.

. State v. Mitchell, 611 S.W.2d 223 (Mo. banc 1981), State v. Baskerville, 616 S.W.2d 839 (Mo.1981), State v. Downs, 593 S.W.2d 535 (Mo.1980), State v. Dunn, 731 S.W.2d 297 (Mo.App.1987), State v. Clark, 711 S.W.2d 928 (Mo.App.1986), State v. Carr, 687 S.W.2d 606 (Mo.App.1985).

. State v. Mercer, 618 S.W.2d 1, 11 (Mo. banc 1981), State v. Newlon, 627 S.W.2d 606, 623 (Mo. banc 1982).