aggravating evidence

Because the defendant has the right to present mitigating evidence at the sentencing phase, the prosecution should be able to present aggravating evidence about the victim.

The judge then concluded that this aggravating evidence outweighed the fact that Cunningham had no criminal history, and sentenced Cunningham to the high term of 16 years.

Associate Justice Joseph Grodin's opinion referred to Allen's crimes as "sordid events" with an "extraordinarily massive amount" of aggravating evidence.

He wrote that while the state was certainly free to submit aggravating evidence, the stipulation in and of itself could not be viewed as "bad" character evidence in its own right.

The chief justice said the fact that the jurors then spent two hours in further deliberation showed that they were weighing the mitigating and aggravating evidence and were not simply imposing a death sentence automatically.

The jury may, but was not required to, then evaluate all the evidence it had heard, including mitigating evidence and other aggravating evidence not supporting one of the ten factors beyond a reasonable doubt-and decide whether the defendant should live or die.

Last week, in their presentation of aggravating evidence, which includes the effect of a crime on its victims, prosecutors presented testimony from grief-stricken family members of those who died, survivors trying to live with agonizing and disfiguring injuries and rescuers who still have nightmares.

The court was deeply split on a basic question of death penalty law: the validity of the death penalty statute in Kansas under which a death sentence is automatic if the jury finds that the mitigating evidence and aggravating evidence are of equal weight.

"It flouts prudence to deny that a defense lawyer should try to look at a file he knows the prosecution will cull for aggravating evidence, let alone when the file is sitting in the trial courthouse, open for the asking," Justice Souter said, adding that "no reasonable lawyer would forgo examination of the file."

In a dissenting opinion, California Supreme Court Justice Broussard stated that the prosecutor influenced the jury by telling them that "if you conclude that aggravating evidence outweighs the mitigating evidence, you shall return a death sentence," while the law does not mandate a death sentence in such a situation.