State vs. James Ellison Rouse

The defendant was convicted of two counts of first degree murder and two counts of attempted first degree murder as the result of a shooting spree at Richland High School. The defendant, then seventeen, was tried and convicted as an adult, and sentenced to two consecutive life without the possibility of parole terms plus fifty years. The additional fifty-year term is modified to forty-two years. We affirm the two consecutive life without the possibility of parole terms holding that if a jury unanimously finds the existence of at least one aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt, then in its considered discretion, the jury may sentence the defendant to either life imprisonment or life without the possibility of parole absent a showing of "gross abuse of discretion."