2d 789 (1991). This year's awardee is Lyda Hill. The district court found that one judgment of conviction involved first-degree murder accomplished by the use of a knife. Id. We noted that the statute providing the four-step process did not supply a standard with which to determine whether sufficient mitigating factors existed to outweigh any aggravating factor or factors. The district court followed the form of its order, by reviewing the statutory mitigating factors as supported by the evidence, and all mitigation of record. 16-11-103(6)(j) (hereinafter "the especially heinous killing aggravator"). at 427-430 (statement of the facts) & 449-450 (sentencing analysis). The majority opinion undermines this policy by providing no analysis of the relevance of White's confession to its decision as to whether the trial court would have imposed the death penalty if it had only considered the one valid aggravator. The trial court's obvious misinterpretation of the "especially heinous, cruel or depraved" statutory aggravating factor violated the death statute and denied Mr. White his rights under the Cruel and Unusual Punishment and Due Process Clauses of the federal and Colorado Constitutions. (1986), at Centennial. Thus, the district ruled: [6] Section 16-11-103(1)(a), 8A C.R.S. He was released and recalled several more times. 1. Jenks v. Sullivan, 826 *448 P.2d 825, 827 (Colo.1992) (citing People v. District Court, 713 P.2d 918, 921 (Colo. 1986)). The order of the commission of the homicides is immaterial.Id. Similarly, a district court's written findings can but imperfectly impart the difficult thought processes that have caused the judge to make the statutorily required determinations in a capital sentencing proceeding. White did not spend much time in Pueblo. He subsequently returned to Colorado. If Colorado convict Robert Charles Browne's claim to have killed 48 people over three decades is true, he would rank among the nation's most prolific serial killers. State v. Wille, 559 So. In 1984, the defendant was convicted of aggravated robbery, among other things. Cf. We have stated that, "in order to achieve constitutional validity, a capital sentencing scheme must allow the sentencing body to consider any relevant mitigating evidence regarding the defendant's character and background and the circumstances of the offense." The district court ordered that Dr. William Ingram be given a reasonable opportunity to conduct a psychiatric examination of White, and that the expense of the examination be paid by the State of Colorado. The shooting and mutilation of his roommate Paul Vosika was the beginning of Whites killing spree in Pueblo, a southern Colorado city of 102,000 people about 110 miles from Denver. This was the murder that prompted White's death sentence. The unambiguous language and purpose of section 190.2(a)(2) thus require that a person such as defendant, already convicted of murder in a prior proceeding, must be considered eligible for the death penalty if convicted of first degree murder in a subsequent trial. According to a 2022 report from World Population Review. This case is remanded to the district court to set a date for the execution of the sentence. It is not enough to instruct the jury in the bare terms of an aggravating circumstance that is unconstitutionally vague on its face. ", "Robert Charles Browne is a Killer Con Man", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Charles_Browne&oldid=1133194405, American prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment, Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Colorado, Violence against women in the United States, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 12 January 2023, at 17:05. To pass constitutional muster, a capital sentencing scheme must "genuinely narrow the class of persons eligible for the death penalty and must reasonably justify the imposition of a more severe sentence on the defendant compared to others found guilty of murder. . [9] Boyde, 494 U.S. at 381-82, 110 S. Ct. at 1198-99, and Penry, 492 U.S. at 315-19, 109 S. Ct. at 2944-47, discuss evidence of mitigating circumstances. He returned to the Cedarwood area and used the saw to remove the head and hands from Vosika's body. The district court first considered whether the prosecution proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that White "was previously convicted in this state of a class 1 or 2 felony involving violence as specified in section 16-11-309," pursuant to section 16-11-103(6)(b). We concluded that, in the context of the United States Supreme Court decisions in Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U.S. 356, 108 S. Ct. 1853, 100 L. Ed. Arrested along with his accomplice, his younger brother Danny, and sentenced to 8 years in prison; released on September 8, 2010, was recalled on March 13, 2011, for associating with gang members. On April 17, 1991, White filed a withdrawal of his request for a competency hearing on the grounds that "he does not intend to pursue his claim that he is mentally incompetent to proceed. Like Tenneson, the defendant in O'Neill challenged the propriety of instructions given to the jury. atutory language "previously convicted" in the Tennessee death penalty statute "clearly indicates that the date of the conviction, not of the commission of the crime, is the important factor. Aggravator (6)(d) states that "[t]he defendant intentionally killed a person kidnapped or being held as a hostage." White presented extensive testimony on the subjects of the abject living conditions at Centennial and of physical abuse by officers directed at inmates. Article II, section 16, of the Colorado Constitution, and the Due Process Clause, as well as the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, guarantee the right of a criminal defendant to be present at all critical stages of the prosecution. Additionally, the benefit of White's presence at this hearing would have been nebulous, as his attorneys adequately informed the court of White's opinion that he did not want the providency hearing continued. (relying on Durre, 690 P.2d at 173). 16-11-103(2)(a)(III).Id. Accordingly, the sentence of death shall be and the same is hereby imposed.In its discussion of the fourth step, the district court made only one reference to the manner in which White killed Vosika and disposed of the body. Thus, we concluded that the third step "requires each juror to make a judgment based on an assessment and comparison of the weightiness of each of the aggravating factors proven." This fear caused him to strike Vosika's corpse in the face with the shovel as retribution for the consequences of the presumed discovery. Therefore, he abandoned further efforts to dispose of the body that night. The transcript of the prosecution's closing argument in the sentencing hearing reflects this same erroneous focus. Jan. 17A former Colorado Springs Bible study teacher, Carlton Ranquist, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a child on Tuesday afternoon. Id. [15] 2d 656 (1991) (victim raped, beaten and then shot multiple times in the head and chest), in which the victims' bodies were mutilated and abused during the perpetration of their murders. In addition, the state constitution is no less protective of the rights of criminal defendants in capital cases than is the federal constitution. 16-11-103(6)(f). Fourth, if the court finds beyond a reasonable doubt that mitigating factors do not outweigh the proven statutory aggravating factors, then the court must decide whether the prosecution has convinced it beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant should be sentenced to death. Atty. Officer Avery testified that White did not express remorse, but maintained a solemn facial expression and cooperated in answering the questions. Six men are on death row in Colorado. We find no legislative history, decisional law, or policy considerations to recommend defendant's interpretation. No. The trial court reviewed the defendant's four interviews, as well as a number of letters White wrote to the district attorney and law enforcement officials, and White's testimony and demeanor. See maj. op. Gomez testified that White had provided the details of the last minutes of Vosika's life, and how he had killed Vosika. Devil In The Mountains With Lt. Joe Kenda (Full Video). Robert Charles Browne was born on October 31, 1952, in Coushatta, Louisiana, the youngest of nine children. ", It is also somewhat puzzling that although the district court singled out as "very credible" White's interview with Spinuzzi in which White says he killed Vosika in the garage of White's apartment at 119 Bonnymede in Pueblo, when the court concluded in its written order that the existence of the especially heinous killing aggravator had been established, the only quotation from White included as support for that conclusion was White's statement to Gomez that White took satisfaction in taunting Vosika before White shot Vosika near a trucking company in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Modified 27 Nov 2022. Unlike the majority, see maj. op. My doubts multiply when I consider step four of the process. I also wrote some mock confessions to make it sound like I was very unsensitive [sic] so that if they went for the death penalty I would get it. The Florida Supreme Court, in Ruffin v. State, 397 So. On March 22, 1991, the district court entered an order setting a providency hearing for White's plea on April 23, to be followed by a sentencing hearing should the district court accept White's plea. The latest on the Colorado Springs shooting: Five people are dead and 25 injured after a gunman entered Club Q, a Colorado Springs LGBTQ club, Saturday and began firing with a long rifle. Authorities discovered that in the months that followed Vosika's murder, Ronald Lee White fatally stabbed Victor Lee Woods inside the victim's home before setting him on fire on January 25. White then indicated that Young was responsible for Vosika's death. The federal constitution requires that capital sentencing statutes permit the sentencing body to consider any relevant mitigating evidence regarding the circumstances of the offense. Colorado Springs has seen 12 homicide investigations in 2022, three times the amount it had seen at this time last year. He was connected to well over twenty more murders in the Denver area, but never convicted. The intensity of defendant's violence has resulted in two prior first-degree murder convictions for the murder of two persons. THE "ESPECIALLY HEINOUS" STATUTORY AGGRAVATOR White contends that the district court's interpretation of the "especially heinous, cruel, or depraved" statutory aggravator violated section 16-11-103 and denied him his rights under the Cruel and Unusual Punishment, the Due Process, and the Ex Post Facto Clauses of the Colorado and United States Constitutions. We find no error. The Biegenwald court stated: D. HEARINGS Providency HearingAt the providency hearing on April 24, 1991, White informed the district court that he was prepared to enter a plea over his attorney's objections. 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