 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Black v. State9/13/2000
ON DIRECT APPEAL FROM BELL COUNTY
Meyers, J., filed a concurring opinion in which Johnson, J., joined.
The appellant was convicted of capital murder in August, 1998, which was committed on February 7, 1998. Penal Code sec. 19.03(a). Pursuant to the jury's answers to the special issues set forth in Code of Criminal Procedure article 37.071, sections 2(b) and 2(e), the trial judge sentenced the appellant to death. Art. 37.071, sec. 2(g). Direct appeal to this Court is automatic. Art. 37.071, sec. 2(h). The appellant raises five points of error, but does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict. We shall affirm.
In his first and second points of error, the appellant alleges that the child capital-murder provision, Penal Code section 19.03(a)(8), violates the Equal Protection Clauses of both the federal and state constitutions. See U.S. Const. amend. XIV; Tex. Const. art. I, secs. 3, 3a. He contends that the provision is unconstitutional because it does not require the State to allege or prove that the defendant knew that the victim was under the age of six and, therefore, does not require any additional "aggravating" circumstance be proved before elevating murder to capital murder.
Unless a statute challenged on equal-protection grounds interferes with a fundamental right or discriminates against a suspect class, we review that statute using the rational-basis test. Kadrmas v. Dickinson Public Schools, 487 U.S. 450, 458 (1988); Henderson v. State, 962 S.W.2d 544, 560 (Tex. Cr. App. 1997). Capital-murder defendants are not a suspect class for purposes of equal-protection analysis. Henderson, 962 S.W.2d at 560. Nor does the death penalty implicate a fundamental right, for "life no longer occupies the status of a fundamental right for persons who have been convicted" of capital murder. Id. at 561. We therefore review the child capital-murder provision under the rational- basis test. The rational-basis test requires that we uphold the statute if the provision is rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose. See, e.g., Kadrmas, 487 U.S. at 461-62 (1988).
In Henderson we noted that the United States Supreme Court has consistently recognized that a state has a legitimate and compelling interest in protecting the well-being of its children. Henderson, 962 S.W.2d at 562. We further noted that crimes directed toward young children are among the most morally outrageous because they target the most innocent and vulnerable members of society. Ibid. We found that the child capital-murder provision is rationally related to the government's interest in protecting young children and expressing society's moral outrage against the murder of young children. Ibid. We reasoned that the demarcation of six years of age in section 19.03(a)(8) was not unconstitutionally arbitrary because the statute must draw a numerical line somewhere to retain clarity. Ibid. Hence, we held that the statute did not violate equal protection among those who kill children. Id. at 562-63.
The appellant's argument, however, is not that the statute violates equal protection because the line between five-year-olds and six-year- olds is arbitrary. Rather, he asserts that section 19.03(a)(8) violates equal protection because it creates a capital-murder offense which does not require proof of an aggravating element or his knowledge of that element. The equal-protection violation that the appellant claims is that this treats offenders sentenced under this provision differently than those sentenced under other capital-murder provisions.
By writing the law so that the intentional or knowing killing of an individual under six years of ag
Page 1 2 3 4 5 Texas Employee Leasing Services
Employee Leasing Services
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|