concluding that the death penalty was.proportionate in a case in which an infant was shaken and beaten to death by the mother’s boyfriend
How later courts described this case
- concluding that the death penalty was.proportionate in a case in which an infant was shaken and beaten to death by the mother’s boyfriend
- "Based on the overwhelming amount of evidence that the killing was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, assuming arguendo the admission of this statement was error, any such error was necessarily harmless beyond a reasonable doubt."
- death sentence proportionate for murder of a four-month-old child where the jury found as the only aggravating circumstance that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice Whichakd
concurring in the result in part.
On issue XX, I do not agree that the prosecutor did not misstate the law in his explanation of Issue Three of the capital sentencing proceeding. For the reasons stated in Justice Frye’s dissenting opinions in McCarver and McLaughlin, both filed simultaneously herewith, I believe the prosecutor’s statement that the jury must be unanimous to answer Issue Three in the negative was incorrect.
In this case, however, unlike in McCarver and McLaughlin, the misstatement was by the prosecutor, not the judge. Further, there was no objection to the statement at trial, so the standard of review is whether the error was so egregious as to require the trial court to intervene ex mero motu. I do not believe the misstatement rose to that level, nor do I believe that, in the total context presented, there is any serious possibility the statement had an effect on the jury’s decision. I therefore concur in the result reached on this issue in the opinion for the Court, though disagreeing with the reasoning.
Justice FRYE joins in this concurring opinion.