Cooper v. State

• Decision Date: 13 July 1989
• Docket Number: No. 45S00-8701-CR-61,45S00-8701-CR-61
• Parties: Paula R. COOPER, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below).
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 1216

540 N.E.2d 1216

Paula R. COOPER, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below).

No. 45S00-8701-CR-61.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

July 13, 1989.

William L. Touchette, Lake County Appellate Public Defender, Crown Point, Victor L. Streib, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland, Ohio, for appellant.

Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen., Michael Gene Worden, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.

John R. Van Winkle, John G. Shubat, Bingham Summers Welsh & Spilman, Indianapolis, for amicus curiae, Indiana Juvenile Justice Task Force.

Richard A. Waples, Legal Director, Indiana Civil Liberties Union, Indianapolis, Lawrence A. Vanore, Barnes & Thornburg, Indianapolis, for amicus curiae, Indiana Civil Liberties Union.

Nigel Rodley, Amnesty Intern., United Kingdom, Paul L. Hoffman, Joan W. Howarth, Amnesty International-USA, Legal Support Network, Los Angeles, Cal., Michael Sutherlin, Indianapolis, Joan Fitzpatrick, Alice M. Miller, Jane G. Rocamora, David Weissbrodt, Amnesty International-USA, Legal Support Network, New York City, for amicus curiae, Amnesty Intern Joseph A. Morris, The Mid-America Legal Foundation, Chicago, Ill., Dennis J. Stanton, Merrillville, for amicus curiae, The Mid-America Legal Foundation, Leadership Councils of America, and the Lincoln Institute for Research and Education.

SHEPARD, Chief Justice.

The question is whether Paula Cooper may be executed for committing the grisly murder of Mrs. Ruth Pelke. We hold that she may not.

There are two separate and independent grounds for this decision. First, in light of the Indiana General Assembly's policy decision that persons who commit crimes at age 15 or younger may not be executed, we conclude under article 7, section 4 of the Indiana Constitution that Cooper should not be executed.

Second, the legal issue presented by Cooper is within the boundaries of Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 2687, 101 L.Ed.2d 702 (1988), which held that the eighth amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits execution of an offender under the same circumstances.

This is a difficult conclusion to reach because of the gruesome nature of Cooper's acts.

I. Case History

On May 14, 1985, Paula Cooper, age 15, gathered with several of her girlfriends. The conversation turned to a plan to obtain money. They devised a scheme they thought would induce a neighborhood woman to give them money, but it met with no success.

Cooper's accomplice April Beverly suggested they could get into 78-year-old Ruth Pelke's house "to get money and jewelry and different things" by asking her when she held Bible classes. They went to the house and spoke to Mrs. Pelke, but did not get inside. Beverly gave Cooper a knife "to scare the old lady with" and they tried again. This time they gained entrance by asking Mrs. Pelke to write down the information about her Bible classes.

While Mrs. Pelke was writing down the information, Paula Cooper grabbed her from behind and pushed her to the floor. Cooper hit her on the head with a vase. She took the knife, cut Pelke's arms and legs, and stabbed her in the stomach and in the chest. The autopsy revealed Pelke was stabbed thirty-three times.

After the murder, Cooper helped the other girls search the house. They found the keys to Pelke's car, which Cooper used to get away. Cooper also took ten dollars from the house.

On July 8, 1985, the prosecutor filed an amended information charging Cooper with three counts of murder under Ind.Code Sec. 35-42-1-1. On April 21, 1986, Cooper pled guilty to count I, knowing or intentional murder, and count II, murder in the commission or attempt of a robbery. There was no plea agreement. During the hearing at which Cooper pled, she described her attack on Pelke in some detail. She admitted that she had entered the house intending to commit robbery and that she had in fact taken ten dollars. The trial court found that Cooper's statements provided the factual basis to prove she had committed the crimes and entered a judgment of conviction on both counts.

The trial court held a sentencing hearing on July 11, 1986. After expressing doubt about applying Indiana's death penalty statute to a juvenile, the late Judge James Kimbrough considered various mitigating and aggravating circumstances and sentenced Cooper to death.

On direct appeal Cooper's attorneys argue that sentencing Cooper to death violates the Indiana Constitution and the United States Constitution because she was 15 years old when she committed the crime. These issues and Cooper's appeal have been the subject of international attention. ¹ The appeal pending in this Court, however, must be resolved only on the basis of Indiana and federal law. While Cooper's lawyers raise at least six grounds for vacating her penalty, we find two to be dispositive.

II. The Indiana Constitution

The Indiana Code requires automatic review by this Court of every death sentence. Ind.Code Sec. 35-50-2-9(h) (Burns 1985 Repl.) This review must occur whether a prisoner seeks it or not; it cannot be waived. Judy v. State (1981), 275 Ind. 145, 416 N.E.2d 95. The Indiana Constitution requires that this review be by way of direct appeal to this Court and confers upon the Court "the power to review all questions of law and to review and revise the sentence imposed." Ind. Const. art. VII, Sec. 4.

The framers of the constitutional reform of which section 4 was a part provided explicitly for reference to certain historical materials in interpreting its meaning: "The report of the Judicial Study Commission and the comments to the article contained therein may be consulted by the Court of Justice to determine the underlying reasons, purposes, and policies of this article and may be used as a guide in its construction and application." Ind. Const. art. VII, Schedule (Burns 1978 Ed.). The Commission's report describes the origin and scope of the power to review and revise sentences contained in section 4: "The proposal that the appellate power in criminal cases include the power to review sentences is based on the efficacious use to which that power has been put by the Court of Criminal Appeals in England." Report of the Judicial Study Commission 140 (1967). The English statute establishing the Court of Criminal Appeals set forth that court's power to review and revise sentences as follows:

On appeal against sentence the Court of Criminal Appeal shall, if they think that a different sentence should have been passed, quash the sentence passed at the trial, and pass such other sentence warranted in law by the verdict (whether more or less severe) in substitution therefor as they think ought to have been passed, and in any other case shall dismiss the appeal.

Criminal Appeal Act, 1907, 7 Edward 7, ch. 23, Sec. 4(3).

In light of these directives, this Court has regarded the duties placed upon it by the Code and the Constitution as requiring a more intensive level of scrutiny for sentences of death than for other criminal penalties. Criminal sentences generally are reviewed under the Rules for Appellate Review of Sentences, Ind. Rules of Procedure. Rule 2 of that series provides that a trial court's sentence will be affirmed unless it is manifestly unreasonable. In capital cases, however, these rules "stand more as guideposts for our appellate review than as immovable pillars supporting a sentence decision." Spranger v. State (1986), Ind., 498 N.E.2d 931, 947 n. 2, cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1033, 107 S.Ct. 1965, 95 L.Ed.2d 536 (1987).

In contrast to appellate review of prison terms and its accompanying strong presumption that the trial court's sentence is appropriate, this Court's review of capital cases under article 7 is part and parcel of the sentencing process. Rather than relying on the judgment of the trial court, this Court conducts its own review of the mitigating and aggravating circumstances "to examine whether the sentence of death is appropriate." Schiro v. State (1983), Ind., 451 N.E.2d 1047, 1058, cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1003, 104 S.Ct. 510, 78 L.Ed.2d 699 (1983). The object of this review is to assure consistency in the evenhanded operation of the death penalty statute, and our decision is made "in light of other death penalty cases." Judy, 275 Ind. at 169, 416 N.E.2d at 108. The thoroughness and relative independence of this Court's review is a part of what makes Indiana's capital punishment statute constitutional. Id.

While this case has been pending on appeal, the legal landscape surrounding it has changed dramatically in ways that reflect on the appropriateness of this death penalty "in light of other death penalty cases." The Indiana General Assembly responded to the sentence imposed on Cooper by enacting Public Law No. 332-1987, approved April 7, 1987, and entitled "An Act to amend the Indiana Code concerning children accused of murder." 1987 Ind. Acts 332. Prior to this act, Ind.Code 35-50-2-3(b) read: "... a person who commits murder may be sentenced to death under section 9 of this chapter." Section 1 of the 1987 act amended Ind.Code 35-50-2-3(b) to read: "... a person who was at least sixteen (16) years of age at the time the murder was committed may be sentenced to death under section 9 of this chapter."

The 1987 act, section 2, also amended Ind.Code Sec. 35-50-2-9(c) by adding to the statutory list of mitigating circumstance the fact that "The defendant was less than eighteen (18) years of age at the time the murder was committed." Section 3 of the 1987 act proclaimed: "This act does not apply to a case in which a death sentence has been imposed before September 1, 1987."

Although Public Law No. 332-1987 was popularly called "the Paula Cooper bill," the Attorney General correctly points out that its effective date meant that it did not apply to Cooper herself. The bill's sponsors declared openly that this exclusion was purposeful. ² Although the exclusion was assaulted on the House floor...