Court Opinion

ID: 9779396
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:49:24.909353+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:26.062107
License: Public Domain

Tom Glaze, Justice, concurring. I concur. I agree with the majority but write to be sure that the majority’s reference to our recent holding in O’Rourke v. State, 295 Ark. 57, 746 S.W.2d 53 (1988), does not go unnoticed. The case of Collins v. Lockhart, 754 F.2d 258 (8th Cir. 1985), has been troublesome in murder trials where the death penalty has been sought — as was the situation in the instant case. As noted in the majority opinion, Collins held that a person convicted of an offense of which pecuniary gain was an element could not have that same element used against him as an aggravating circumstance in determining the applicability of the death penalty. In other words, under Collins, an element of the underlying offense of murder could not also be used at the penalty stage to show an aggravating circumstance. The Supreme Court, in Lowenfield v. Phelps,_ U.S. _, 108 S. Ct. 546 (1988), held contrary to the Collins decision. We compared and analyzed those two holdings in O’Rourke, so it is unnecessary for me to repeat that analysis here except to emphasize that part of Lowenfield that holds, “the fact that the aggravating circumstance duplicated one of the elements of the crime does not make this sentence constitutionally infirm.” The Lowenfield and O’Rourke decisions remove the “double-counting” issue raised in the Collins holding and thus prevent the type of difficulties faced by the prosecutor in this case. Hickman, J., joins in this concurrence.