State v. Bey
| Decision Date | 30 June 1994 |
| Citation | 645 A.2d 685,137 N.J. 334 |
| Parties | STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Marko BEY, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
Claudia Van Wyk, Deputy Public Defender II, and James K. Smith, Jr., Asst. Deputy Public Defender, for appellant (Zulima V. Farber, Public Defender, attorney).
Alton D. Kenney, Asst. Prosecutor, for respondent (John Kaye, Monmouth County Prosecutor, attorney; Mark P. Stalford, Asst. Prosecutor, of counsel; Barry J. Serebnick, Asst. Prosecutor, on the brief).
Lawrence S. Lustberg, Newark, for amici curiae Ass'n of Crim. Defense Lawyers of NJ, and NJ State Conference of NAACP Branches (Crummy, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, attorneys).
Catherine A. Foddai, Deputy Atty. Gen., for amicus curiae Atty. Gen. of NJ (Fred DeVesa, Acting Atty. Gen., attorney).
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
In unrelated incidents, defendant, Marko Bey, sexually assaulted and murdered two women. Separate juries sentenced defendant to death for each of the murders. Initially we vacated both death sentences. In State v. Bey, 112 N.J. 45, 548 A.2d 846 (1988) (Bey I ), which involved the murder of Cheryl Alston, we reversed the murder conviction and held that defendant was not death eligible because he was under the age of eighteen at the time of the murder. On remand, a jury found defendant guilty of purposeful murder and aggravated sexual assault. The trial court sentenced him to an aggregate sentence of life imprisonment plus twenty years, with no parole eligibility for forty years. In State v. Bey, 112 N.J. 123, 548 A.2d 887 (1988) (Bey II ), decided the same day as Bey I, we affirmed defendant's conviction for the murder of Carol Peniston. Because of an incorrect jury charge, however, we reversed the death sentence and remanded the matter for re-sentencing. Once again, the jury returned a death sentence for the Peniston murder, which we affirmed in State v. Bey, 129 N.J. 557, 610 A.2d 814 (1992) (Bey III ). In Bey III, we deferred proportionality review of that sentence pending receipt of a more complete record. We now find no disproportionality in the imposition of the death sentence for defendant's second murder.
-I-
The facts surrounding the murder of Carol Peniston are set forth in Bey II, supra, 112 N.J. at 131-33, 548 A.2d 887, and Bey III, supra, 129 N.J. at 568-69, 610 A.2d 814. We therefore include only a brief summary.
On April 26, 1983, around 9:20 p.m., Carol Peniston left Neptune High School, where she had attended a computer course, and had driven away in her car. Approximately four hours later, the car was involved in a one-car accident in Newark. Defendant's fingerprints were on the rearview mirror. Ms. Peniston, who had been divorced and lived alone, neither returned to her apartment nor reported to work the next day.
On May 3, Asbury Park police discovered Ms. Peniston's body in a shed near an industrial building. An autopsy performed on May 4 disclosed that she had been dead for several days. The autopsy further disclosed that she had been beaten, sexually assaulted, and strangled. From a sneaker imprint on her chest and from evidence of fractured ribs and hemorrhaging of the right lung, vertebral column, and right atrium of the heart, the Monmouth County medical examiner concluded that Ms. Peniston's assailant had stomped on her chest. The ultimate cause of her death, however, was ligature strangulation. Subsequent police investigation revealed that the characteristics of spermatozoa found on the victim's coat were consistent with those of defendant's saliva, and that defendant's sneakers bore an imprint that was similar to the impression on the victim's chest.
On May 6, defendant, who had turned eighteen only three weeks earlier, was arrested for receiving stolen property, Ms. Peniston's car. After five hours in police custody, defendant confessed to the murder.
Defendant then gave a written statement, in which he admitted that he had accosted Ms. Peniston in front of her apartment building and demanded money from her. The statement continued that when defendant heard someone coming, he grabbed her and led her to the shed. In the ensuing events, he repeatedly struck Ms. Peniston, sexually assaulted her, and took eight dollars, as well as the car keys, from her pocketbook. While on his way to Newark in her car, he had an accident and abandoned the car.
A jury convicted defendant of capital murder and sentenced him to death. The sentence followed from the jury's finding of two aggravating factors: the murder had "involved torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated assault to the victim," N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(c) (the c(4)(c) factor), and it had been committed in the course of a felony, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(g) (the c(4)(g) factor). The jury found no mitigating factors. We affirmed the conviction, but reversed the death sentence, primarily because the court had incorrectly charged the jury on the mitigating factors. Bey II, supra, 112 N.J. at 156-64, 166-71, 548 A.2d 887.
On the same day that we reversed and remanded Bey's death sentence for the murder of Carol Peniston, we also vacated his conviction and death sentence for the prior murder and sexual assault of Cheryl Alston. Bey I, supra, 112 N.J. at 51, 548 A.2d 846. In that decision, we held that defendant was not death eligible because he had committed the Alston murder before reaching the age of eighteen. Ibid. On re-trial for the Alston murder, the jury found defendant guilty of purposeful murder and aggravated sexual assault. He received an aggregate sentence of life imprisonment plus twenty years, with forty years of parole ineligibility. The Appellate Division affirmed the conviction, 258 N.J.Super. 451, 610 A.2d 403, and we denied certification, 130 N.J. 19, 611 A.2d 657 (1992).
At the re-sentencing trial for the Peniston murder, the State proffered two aggravating factors: defendant previously had been convicted of a murder, that of Cheryl Alston, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(a) (the c(4)(a) factor), and the Peniston murder had occurred during a sexual assault and robbery, the c(4)(g) factor. Defendant did not contest these aggravating factors, but argued that four mitigating factors outweighed them: "defendant was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance," N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(a) (the c(5)(a) factor); defendant's age at the time of the murder, N.J.S.A. 2C:22-3c(5)(c) (the c(5)(c) factor); "defendant's capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law was significantly impaired as the result of mental disease or defect or intoxication," N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(d) (the c(5)(d) factor); and the catch-all factor--"[a]ny other factor which is relevant to the defendant's character or record or the circumstances of the offense," N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(h) (the c(5)(h) factor).
The jury unanimously found both aggravating factors. Two jurors found extreme mental or emotional disturbance, c(5)(a), and six jurors found the catch-all factor, c(5)(h). None of the jurors found that either defendant's age, c(5)(c), or the significant impairment of his moral faculties, c(5)(d), was a mitigating factor. Furthermore, the jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that the two aggravating factors outweighed the two mitigating factors. Consequently, the court sentenced defendant to death. Bey III, supra, 129 N.J. at 576, 610 A.2d 814.
To continue reading
Request your trial
- State v. Muhammad
-
State v. Martini
...generally receive sentences other than death for committing factually-similar crimes in the same jurisdiction. State v. Bey, 137 N.J. 334, 343, 645 A.2d 685 (1994) (Bey IV ); State v. Marshall, 130 N.J. 109, 131, 613 A.2d 1059 (1992) (Marshall II ) . We have declined to set a numerical sta......
- State v. Rhines
-
State v. DiFrisco
...question, "The jury has reached a verdict. Is that correct?" If, as the majority suggests, the jury had not reached a verdict, ante at 485, 645 A.2d at 760, then their actions indicate that they fundamentally misunderstood the proper procedures to be followed in their deliberations and in r......
-
The failure of comparative proportionality review of capital cases (with lessons from New Jersey).
...(conceding that there were limitations by way of the small universe of cases, but still finding the sentence proportional); State v. Bey, 645 A.2d 685, 716 (N.J. 1994) (recognizing that the universe of cases was too small and unreliable and, therefore, using statistical analysis and traditi......
-
The New Jersey Supreme Court in the 1990s: independence is only skin deep.
...own constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws under New Jersey Constitution Article I, paragraph 1."). (129) State v. Bey, 645 A.2d 685, 712 (N.J. 1994); see State v. DiFrisco, 662 A.2d 442, 451 (N.J. 1995) (noting that in general the court's goal is to have equality in the a......
-
In defense of specific proportionality review.
...investing great weight in those results."). (145) See, e.g., id. at 454; State v. Martini, 651 A.2d 949, 963 (N.J. 1994); State v. Bey, 645 A.2d 685, 694 (N.J. 1994) (each describing the salient-factors test as being the most persuasive because it compares factually similar (146) Latzer, su......