For the first time since 1977, the Tennessee Supreme Court has unanimously found a death sentence disproportionate when compared to sentences imposed for similar Tennessee crimes. In a unanimous opinion authored by Chief Justice Frank. F. Drowota, III, and filed Thursday, the court modified the 1996 death sentence of Bobby G. Godsey to life without parole, affirming an earlier Court of Criminal Appeals decision on the issue. Justices also reinstated Godsey’s separate conviction and 25-year sentence for aggravated child abuse.
Godsey, 22 years old when the crime occurred, was convicted by a Sullivan County jury of first degree felony murder for killing 7-month-old Evan Price, his girlfriend’s son. Godsey admitted he was angered by the baby’s crying and threw him toward a bed. Godsey said he did not intend to harm the child, claiming the victim missed the bed, landed on a tile floor, slid and hit a wall. When Godsey discovered the baby was not breathing, he alerted the mother, attempted to perform CPR and called 911. Medical examiners said there was no indication of prior abuse and witnesses testified at trial that Godsey had been fond of the baby and previously had treated him well. Witnesses also testified Godsey had shown remorse for his actions.
The court reviewed several issues raised in Godsey’s appeal but rejected all except his claim that his death sentence was disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering the nature of the crime and the defendant. Writing for the Court, Drowota again emphasized that the justices do “not take lightly our statutory duty to conduct comparative proportionality review in every capital case.” He explained that proportionality review is not a “search for proof that a defendant’s death sentence is perfectly symmetrical with the penalty imposed in all other first degree murder cases, but to identify and invalidate the aberrant death sentence.” The court does
not act as a “?super jury,’ nor do we second guess the jury’s decision,” the chief justice wrote. Drowota explained that a death sentence is disproportionate only if the case is “plainly lacking in circumstances consistent with those in similar cases in which the death penalty has been imposed.”
The Tennessee Legislature, and lawmakers in 19 other states, adopted comparative proportionality review in response to a United States Supreme Court decision upholding a Georgia statute containing a comparative proportionality review mechanism. As explained in Godsey, in conducting proportionality review, Tennessee appellate courts utilize Rule 12 Trial Reports which are required in all first-degree murder cases. The10-page report includes information about the victims, crimes, sentences imposed and defendants.
Drowota said selecting similar cases for review is not an “exact science” since crimes and defendants are not identical. In addition to using Rule 12 reports, the court relies on traditional methods of legal research, such as studying case records, and “the experienced judgment and institutional knowledge of its members.”
“This court utilizes all the tools at its disposal to conduct a thorough and complete comparative proportionality review in every case,” the chief justice wrote, adding that proportionality review is not a rigid mathematical or statistical process.
In agreeing with the Court of Criminal Appeals that Godsey’s death sentence was disproportionate, the Supreme Court reviewed other similar cases involving child victims, including State v. Robert Glen Coe. Coe, who was executed last year, did not know the 8-year-old girl he kidnaped, raped and killed. The victim suffered an “agonizing” death and jurors found four aggravating circumstances, as defined by state law. In contrast, the jury found only one aggravating circumstance in Godsey, that “the murder was committed against a person less than 12 years of age and the defendant was 18 years of age or older.”
The pool of cases used by the court for review included only those “in which the death penalty was sought, a sentencing hearing was held, and a sentencing jury determined the appropriate sentence.” All were Tennessee cases. In comparing the cases, the court considered variables including means and manner of death, motivation, location of the crime, premeditation and provocation. Justices also considered the defendants’ prior criminal records, ages, race, gender, mental and physical conditions, cooperation with authorities, remorse and capacity for rehabilitation.
“All first degree murders are horrible, and they are particularly tragic where, as here, the victim is an innocent, defenseless infant,” Drowota wrote. “... Having considered the record in this case in comparison to the circumstances of similar cases, we are of the opinion that, taken as a whole, this case is plainly lacking in circumstances consistent with those in similar cases in which the death penalty has been imposed. In fact, the circumstances of this case are substantially less egregious overall than the circumstances of similar cases in which a sentence less than death has been imposed.”
In a separate concurring and dissenting opinion, Justice Adolpho A. Birch, Jr. agreed with the result reached by the majority but rejected the reasoning used to reach that result. Responding to "those who would trumpet the majority opinion as proof positive that the proportionality protocol works as it should," Birch wrote, "This result comes from a protocol I perceive as flawed and unreliable." Birch stressed the role of proportionality review as a safeguard against arbitrary sentencing, emphasizing that it would be unjust for one defendant to receive a death sentence when other defendants, convicted of similar crimes, received sentences of life imprisonment.
He proposed reforms to "more effectively fulfill the goals for which [the review] was intended." First, Birch opined that the majority’s focus on whether a case was "plainly lacking in circumstances" with other death penalty cases did not reliably identify disproportionate sentences.
"Under the current protocol," he explained, "a sentence may be found ?proportionate’ even if the defendant can point to similar cases in which a life sentence was imposed."
Rather, Birch offered, the court should ask whether the case under review is "more consistent with" similar death cases or similar life cases. Next, Birch questioned the decision to use for comparison only those cases where the state sought the death penalty.
"In determining proportionality," he wrote, "one must compare all similar crimes and defendants, not just those defendants whose prosecution is more vigorously pursued by the state."
Birch also criticized the majority’s reliance on Rule 12 Trial Reports, noting that "questions have begun to surface concerning whether the Rule 12 database is sufficiently accurate or complete to justify reliance by this court in crucial reviews of death penalty cases."
Finally, Birch suggested that the method for choosing comparison cases was too subjective.
"The scope of the analysis employed by the majority appears to be rather amorphous and undefined – expanding, contracting, and shifting as the analysis moves from case to case," he wrote.
Instead, Birch suggested, objectively measurable factors should be used to select which cases were sufficiently "similar" to the case under review. Applying his proposals, Birch concluded that "it is clear that the state typically does not seek the death penalty, and juries typically do not impose the death penalty, in cases similar to Godsey’s case."
Birch joined the court’s decision to reduce Godsey’s sentence, but expressed his dissatisfaction with the proportionality review applied by the majority.