# Pickens v. State

> Supreme Court of Arkansas · June 1, 1987 · 292 Ark. 362

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9667794

## Case

- **Full name:** Edward Charles PICKENS v. STATE of Arkansas
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Arkansas
- **Decided:** June 1, 1987
- **Citations:** 292 Ark. 362; 730 S.W.2d 230; 1987 Ark. LEXIS 2138
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Hickman
- **Judges:** Glaze, Hickman
- **Cited by:** 35 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9667794

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that any relevant mitigating evidence concerning a defendant’s character should not be excluded

## Opinion text

Darrell Hickman, Justice, concurring. I agree with the majority decision; we have no alternative but to reverse this case. However, I would go further and address the question raised by Collins v. Lockhart, 754 Fed. 258 (8th Cir.) cert. denied — U.S. —, 106 S.Ct. 546 , 88 L.Ed.2d 475 (1985). I would not follow the rationale of that decision which has been rejected by other federal and state courts. Glass v. Blackburn, 791 F.2d 1165 (5th Cir. 1986); Wingo v. Blackburn, 783 F.2d 1046 (5th Cir. 1986); Evans v. Thigpen, 631 F. Supp. 275 (S.D. Miss. 1986); State v. Williams, 317 N.C. 474 , 346 S.E.2d 405 (1986). The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution simply says “excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has indeed strayed a long way from that principle by finding that simply because an element of capital felony murder will be an aggravating circumstance, such a circumstance makes the death penalty unconstitutional.
If a state decides to limit the death penalty, as Arkansas has done to those who commit murder during the commission of certain felonies, in this case robbery, that is not such an arbitrary, broad category of criminal misconduct that fails or should fail the guidelines laid down by the United States Supreme Court. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972); Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976); Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 (1978). A jury may still decide not to impose the death penalty.
It is ironical that the few death penalty cases which will slip through the interminable appeal process will mean that those defendants are simply unlucky. The reason for their fate will not be because they deserve the death penalty more than the great majority who are spared that penalty, but because there are no technical reasons left to throw out the death penalty in their case. Is this a fair way to decide who will get the death penalty? It seems a far more freakish way to impose the death penalty than to leave that decision to juries within reasonable guidelines.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9667794. Public record. Not legal advice.