The death sentence a Shelby County jury imposed upon Roy E. Keough for the murder of his estranged wife was supported by the evidence and was not “arbitrary or disproportionate” when compared to sentences in similar cases, the Tennessee Supreme Court said Monday in a unanimous decision affirming the punishment.
The victim, Betty Keough, was stabbed to death in 1995 following an argument with her estranged husband. Her companion, Kevin Berry, also was stabbed by Keough, but escaped and survived his wounds.
Betty Keough and Berry were drinking beer in a bar when Roy Keough arrived. An argument ensued and continued as the three left the business and walked toward the victim’s car. Keough pushed Betty Keough and then stabbed Berry when he attempted to intervene. Berry was stabbed two more times as he fled into the bar. When police arrived, they found Betty Keough’s body slumped over the steering wheel of her car.
On appeal, the court rejected Keough’s claim that there was insufficient evidence of premeditation for a first-degree murder conviction.
“In our view, the evidence of premeditation, although far from overwhelming, was legally sufficient to support the jury’s verdict,” Chief Justice Riley Anderson wrote for the Supreme Court.
Keough also contended in his appeal that the trial court erred in refusing to allow his attorney to cross-examine a police detective concerning a statement Keough made to other officers. In the statement, Keough said his wife carried a gun and had once shot at him. Because the detective had no personal knowledge of what Keough told the other officers, the trial court refused to allow the cross-examination. The Supreme Court upheld the ruling and also concluded that Keough “is not entitled to relief on this issue because there was other evidence in the record that the victim had threatened to kill the defendant on the day in question.”
In sentencing Keough to death, jurors found one aggravating circumstance as defined by state law – that the defendant previously was convicted of one or more felonies involving violence. The jury concluded that the aggravating circumstance outweighed evidence of any mitigating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt, as required by Tennessee law.
Supreme Court justices also conducted the statutorily mandated proportionality review, which compares a case with cases involving similar defendants and similar crimes. The court concluded that it had “upheld the death sentence in numerous cases bearing similarity” to Keough’s case and that the sentence was not “aberrant, arbitrary or capricious.”
“Since no two defendants and no two crimes are precisely alike, our review is not mechanical or based on a rigid formula,” the chief justice wrote.
In addition to the death sentence, Keough was sentenced to 40 years for the attempted first-degree murder of Berry.