Court Opinion

ID: 9645962
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:41:05.50842+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:33.512249
License: Public Domain

Jack Holt, Jr., Chief Justice, dissenting. I respectfully disagree with the majority and would affirm Ronald Bernard Wilson’s conviction and the sentence of death. The majority acknowledges that in Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242 (1976), the Supreme Court considered a case in which the same language that appears in Ark. Code Ann. § 5-4-604(8) (1987) was used as an aggravating circumstance to justify the death sentence. However, the majority then states that the Supreme Court was apparently unwilling to say that the language of the Florida statute passed constitutional muster. To the contrary, the Supreme Court approved the Florida statute as interpreted by the Supreme Court of Florida. In Proffitt, supra, the Supreme Court concluded: “We cannot say that the provision, as so construed, provides inadequate guidance to those charged with the duty of recommending or imposing sentences in capital cases.” We, in Arkansas, have the same latitude as the Florida courts to interpret and construe our own statute. The Supreme Court has approved the language of a statute identical to ours. We have a duty and a responsibility to support its ruling and to uphold our statute as noted in Associate Justice Hickman’s dissent.