Court Opinion

ID: 9777356
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:08:00.771014+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:52.803866
License: Public Domain

HIGGINS, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the affirmance of the conviction for capital murder; I dissent from the majority’s decision to relieve the defendant of the death penalty as recommended by the jury and imposed by the court.
I agree with the majority’s review of the death sentence insofar as it determines that the sentence was not imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor, and that the evidence supports the jury’s finding of statutory aggravating circumstances. Section 565.014.3(1)(2), RSMo 1978.
I cannot agree with the majority’s determination that the sentence is excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the crime and the defendant. Section 565.014.3(3), RSMo 1978. The determination in this case is premised on an assertion that defendant’s crime is the “same crime” charged against Vicky Williams for which a jury recommended that she be punished by imprisonment for life without eligibility for probation or parole for fifty years, thereby to imply that Mcllvoy is insulated from the death penalty.
It is true that both Vicky Williams and Terry Lee Mcllvoy were charged with the same capital murder, that of Vicky’s husband, Gilbert. Nevertheless, her guilt resulted from a submission that she was an “aider” who procured Terry Lee Mcllvoy and others to kill her husband. State v. Williams, 611 S.W.2d 26, 29 (Mo. banc 1981). A difference, if any be required, sufficient to support affirmance of the death penalty in this case is that Mcllvoy’s guilt resulted from a submission that he, himself, although aided by others, committed the murder of Gilbert Williams by shooting him a number of times in the manner described, and that he did so by intention and after cool and full reflection. Although the acts of Mcllvoy at the site of the killing were attributed to Williams for purposes of determining her guilt, they were not her acts; she was not present at the scene of the murder. Cf. State v. Newlon, 627 S.W.2d 606 (Mo. banc 1982). (Where defendant was present.) The “crimes” committed by Williams and Mcllvoy are not the same when considering whether the penalty imposed is excessive or disproportionate.
Those matters enumerated to picture defendant as a “weakling and a follower” were in evidence at trial and were embodied in the submission of the guilt and punishment issues to the jury. The majority’s recital of these “factors” in considering whether the death penalty is excessive or disproportionate for this defendant is not persuasive once it decided that he is not relieved of his culpability by reason of diminished capacity. They are not overriding factors to require this Court to view defendant’s sentence as excessive and disproportionate and to relieve him of his sentence.
The judgment, including conviction of capital murder and sentence to death therefor, should be affirmed.