Court Opinion

ID: 9576450
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:24:27.690304+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:08:27.868252
License: Public Domain

Steffen, J.,
concurring:
I concur in the majority opinion affirming Beets’ convictions and penalty, but feel compelled to address the non-issue raised by my colleague, Justice Young, in his dissent and tangentially credited by my colleagues Justices Springer and Rose in their separate opinions. Unfortunately, statistics invite numerous conclusions in almost any area where they are used, and frequently the same statistics may be cited in support of diametrically opposite conclusions. I suggest that the conclusions reached by the dissenting justice are unreliable and simplistic. As a preface to my analysis of the dissent’s conclusions, I will add to the chart supplied by my colleague, the following information:

CASE NAME

1. PAINE. This matter is awaiting decision by this court. Factual basis for guilty plea and imposition of death penalty involved shooting two taxicab drivers in the head without provocation. The one driver survived, the other was killed.
2. JONES. Factual basis for guilty plea involved shooting and bludgeoning the victim in the head in order to steal the victim’s recreational vehicle. Sentencing panel heard eye-witness testimony of the daughter of two victims who were murdered in Florida by Jones.
*9683. REDMEN. This matter is awaiting decision by this court. Factual basis for conviction involved allegations of the “execution” of the male victim by shooting the victim three times, cutting off the victim’s hands and disfiguring the victim’s face with a piece of wrought iron.
4. BEETS. In this, the instant case, Beets bludgeoned and stabbed the one female victim to death, and stabbed and bludgeoned the other female victim and inserted the end of a hammer up her vagina. The latter victim survived.
5. KIRKSEY. Beat his victim to death. Evidence admitted concerning other violent crimes, including a shotgun murder and the stabbing to death of his estranged girlfriend in California. State presented a letter written by Kirksey stating that if he had the power to bring life back to all his victims, he would do it so he could murder them again.
6. BAAL. Repaid his victim’s kindness in giving him money by stabbing her repeatedly, thus causing her death. Murder was committed in the course of a robbery and while Baal was under a sentence of imprisonment.
7. FLANAGAN I & II. Flanagan strangled and beat his first victim to death and then dismembered the victim’s body, placing the head, arms, legs, and chopped torso in garbage bags which he later deposited in dumpsters. He later met and strangled his second victim to death, taking his wallet and clothes and disposing of the body in a remote area.
8. WILLIAMS. Broke into his victim’s home while she was asleep. The young woman, who was eight months pregnant, was first tortured by Williams and then brutally stabbed thirty-eight times. The fetus also expired from a lack of oxygen resulting from its mother’s death.
9. MORAN I & II. Without warning or provocation, Moran shot two victims, a woman and a man. Each victim was shot four times. Moran also shot and killed his former wife nine days later. Moran was sentenced to death for all three killings, but we found the aggravating circumstances infirm as to the former wife and ordered that sentence reduced to life without possibility of parole.
10. HILL. Killed an elderly, paralyzed woman by repeatedly thrusting a long, wooden stick into her rectum and vagina, perforating her vulva, perineal septum, sigmoid colon, and kidney.
11. COLE. Murdered his female victim in Nevada by strangulation. Was also convicted by jury verdicts in the State of Texas with the murder of three female victims, each by strangulation.
12. WILSON. Stabbed to death an undercover narcotics officer; evidence indicated that the victim pleaded for his life, but survived only approximately 20 minutes after being stabbed nine times. The body was taken to a remote area and buried in a shallow grave.
*96913. OLAUSEN. Participated with Wilson in the stabbing death of the undercover narcotics officer. The dissent failed to note, however, that this court eventually granted Olausen post-conviction relief for ineffective assistance of counsel, and upon resubmission to another three-judge panel, Olausen was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
14. FARMER. Killed his victim by repeated stabbings in furtherance of burglary and robbery.
15. MERCADO. Strangled an inmate to death with a rope. The three-judge panel sentenced Mercado to life without the possibility of parole.
16. PRICE. Involved with Mercado in the strangling of an inmate. Was sentenced by the three-judge panel to life with the possibility of parole.
17. BISHOP. Shot two people while robbing a cashier at a casino. The one victim died; the other survived. At time of murder, Bishop was under a sentence of imprisonment for armed robbery in California. He had also been previously convicted of a felony involving the use or threatened use of violence to the person of another.
I have burdened this concurrence with abbreviated details of the homicides committed by each of the defendants appearing in the statistical chart provided by the dissent because I do not believe a purely statistical analysis without such detail can have any meaning. I also note that this court specifically determined, in Baal v. State, 106 Nev. 69, 787 P.2d 391 (1990), and Hill v. State, 102 Nev. 377, 724 P.2d 734 (1986), that Nevada’s three-judge panel sentencing procedure under NRS 175.556 and NRS 175.558 is constitutional. In my opinion, our recent rulings in Baal and Hill were correct and constitute sound law.
In reviewing once again the nature of the crimes for which fifteen of the seventeen capital defendants identified by the dissent were sentenced to death, I am unable to perceive any basis for concluding that the fairness or objectivity of any of the three-judge panels is subject to serious doubt. Indeed, excluding the two cases as yet undecided by this court, the judgment of each of the sentencing panels has been reviewed by this court and affirmed.
Although we are keenly aware of the problems inherent in an elective system for selecting judges, I find no basis under the statistical data supplied by the dissent for concluding that any of the judges sitting on these cases betrayed their sworn duty to fairly and impartially apply the law. If the dissent’s position has merit, then it must be equally clear that we, as appellate judges, have been equally lacking in the fair and impartial application of the law since we have reviewed and affirmed the decisions of each of the panels imposing death on the subject defendants. It appears *970to me that if we are to conclude that elected district court judges sitting in panels of three are unfit to consider penalties in capital cases, then, as elected appellate judges who have reviewed and scrutinized their deliberations and conclusions, we must be equally unfit to perform our sworn duties of review.
I suggest that the statistics cited by the dissent as evidence of bias on the part of three-judge panels in favor of death prove nothing of the sort. One need only review the details of each case resulting in the imposition of death to understand why both the three-judge panels and the members of this court on review found that the ultimate penalty was justified. Unless we have been mindlessly fulfilling our responsibilities, we have determined, after careful review in each of these cases, that “[njothing contained in the record indicates that the sentence of death was imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or any arbitrary factor,” and that “the sentence of death is not excessive . . . considering both the crime and the defendant.” Hill, 102 Nev. at 380, 724 P.2d at 736. See NRS 177.055(2)(c) and NRS 177.055(2)(d). In short, we have validated the judgment of each of these three-judge panels, and I am unaware of any basis for impeaching the quality or bona fides of our review in any of the cases. Accordingly, there is no basis whatsoever for concluding that capital defendants have been subjected to biased treatment by any of the three-judge sentencing panels.
Moreover, the statistical conclusions reached by the dissent are inaccurate. There were actually 19 sentences (excluding the cases of Paine and Redmen which we have not yet decided) imposed by three-judge panels involving the defendants listed in the chart contained in the dissent. Moran was actually sentenced to death for each of the three killings, and this court ordered the one death sentence reduced to a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Additionally, Olausen’s capital sentence was vacated by this court after post-conviction proceedings and remanded for a new sentencing which included death as an option. The second three-judge panel sentenced Olausen to life without the possibility of parole. Based upon my computations, defendants appearing before three-judge panels have received sentences other than death in sixteen percent of the cases, not eleven percent as found by my dissenting colleague.
Furthermore, I am unable to fathom, given the real-life details involved in the murders involving these capital defendants, how anyone could objectively or empirically derive from these statistics the conclusion that they represent “dire statistical odds” that call into question the constitutionality of our sentencing procedures. Capital cases, which are comparatively few in number in the first place, are simply not susceptible to meaningful statistical analysis in a vacuum. Nor may a determination of the “odds” of *971a capital sentence be computed merely by adding up the type of sentences meted out by our three-judge panels.1 Such panels had to bring to bear the same careful analysis of the crime, aggravating and mitigating factors, and background evidence concerning the defendants that we have had to consider in reaching just determinations. None of these cases are of a “garden variety.” I must conclude from the statistical fact that this court has validated the sentences of all but one of eighteen (there was no basis for our reviewing the life sentence given Olausen by the second panel) imposed by our three-judge panels, that they have been correct in at least ninety-four percent of their deliberations. Moreover, in the one Moran death sentence we ordered reduced, we did so on the basis of infirm aggravating circumstances rather than a determination that death was unwarranted, a premise proved by our affirmation of Moran’s other two death sentences.
Significantly, the United States Supreme Court, in Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U.S. 447 (1984), affirmed a sentence of death imposed by the trial judge despite the jury’s recommendation that the defendant received a life sentence. Pertinent to the instant subject is the following language from Spaziano:
The sentencer, whether a judge or jury, has a constitutional obligation to evaluate the unique circumstances of the individual defendant and the sentencer’s decision for life is final. . . . More important, despite its unique aspects, a capital sentencing proceeding involves the same fundamental issue involved in any other sentencing proceeding — a determination of the appropriate punishment to be imposed on an individual. . . . The Sixth Amendment never has been thought to guarantee a right to a jury determination of that issue.
*972In light of the facts that the Sixth Amendment does not require jury sentencing, that the demands of fairness and reliability in capital cases do not require it, and that neither the nature of, nor the purpose behind, the death penalty requires jury sentencing, we cannot conclude that placing responsibility on the trial judge to impose the sentence in a capital case is unconstitutional.
Id. at 459, 464.
By way of summary, neither the United States Constitution nor the Nevada Constitution requires criminal defendants, including capital defendants, to be sentenced by a jury. Nor does either constitution permit only non-elected judges to participate in the sentencing process. Indeed, if it is constitutional for a single judge to override a jury recommendation of life and thereafter impose a sentence of death, then, a fortiori, it is certainly constitutional for three-judge panels who are not overriding jury recommendations, to impose capital sentences. Moreover, I view Nevada’s system as enlightened, because it attenuates any “political” pressure on a single judge to impose the ultimate penalty.2 Finally, the conclusion I reach from the “statistics” presented by my dissenting colleague is that our three-judge panels are responsibly approaching the difficult task which they occasionally are called upon to perform in these very difficult, gut-wrenching cases. This court has officially agreed with the premise by almost invariably placing its imprimatur on the decisions reached by these panels.
Finally, I also part company with my dissenting colleague concerning his conclusion that NRS 200.033(4) requires the sexual assault victim to also be the murder victim. A literal reading of the statute comprehends murder “committed while the person was engaged, alone or with others, in the commission of or an attempt to commit or flight after committing or attempting to commit . . . sexual assault.” NRS 200.033(4) (quoted in pertinent part). My colleague’s position deprives the statute of its entire scope, for he would find no violation of this statute if a defendant, after raping a mother in the home, then encountered a teen-age son while leaving the scene and killed him. In the instant case, Beets interrupted his approach to sexual assault long enough to kill the sexual assault victim’s mother, who had sought to intervene in Beets’ criminal conduct. The killing was, in effect, *973an integral part of the planned sexual assault on Beets’ former girlfriend. At no place in the statute does the language state or infer that a murder committed during or after a sexual assault or attempted sexual assault has to befall the sexual assault victim.
As noted above, I concur in the majority opinion affirming both the judgment of convictions pursuant to the jury’s verdict, and the sentence of death imposed by the three-judge panel.

Unless the dissenting justice has in mind some type of sentencing body other than judges or juries, it seems clear to me that in no case could the statistical analysis involving three-judge panels have any validity without comparing them with the results of jury deliberations in cases where the state is seeking the death penalty. For example, the case of Harvey v. State, 100 Nev. 340, 682 P.2d 1384 (1984), readily comes to mind where a jury sentenced the sixteen-year-old defendant to death for a spur of the moment shooting that occurred as the young man was fleeing from a robbery he had committed and suddenly encountered a security guard in the vehicle he intended to use for escape. We concluded that the death penalty was excessive, vacated it and imposed a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Although I would personally view the comparison as irrelevant, I suggest that without determining whether three-judge panels impose the death penalty significantly more frequently than juries, the conclusions arrived at by the dissenting justice cannot even have colorable validity. Moreover, such a comparison would have to include a determination of the ratio of death penalty affirmances by this court on capital sentences imposed by both sentencing bodies.

Importantly, the trial judges (circuit court judges) in Florida are also elected. Fla. Const, art. 5, § 15. It should be evident that single elected judges empowered to override jury recommendations and impose capital sentences would be far more susceptible to political pressure than panels of three elected judges who are not empowered to override jury determinations.