Smith v. State (Majority, with Dissenting)
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The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant’s convictions of kidnapping, abuse of a corpse, and capital murder and his sentence of death, holding that there were no errors in the proceedings below that were prejudicial to Defendant.
Specifically, the Court held (1) no prejudicial error occurred when the circuit court permitted the jury to consider the death of the victim’s unborn child as an aggravating circumstance; (2) the circuit court did not abuse its discretion when it permitted the prosecution to present rebuttal testimony; (3) the circuit court did not manifestly abuse its discretion in allowing the State to make certain comments during the penalty-phase rebuttal closing argument; (4) the circuit court properly instructed the jury; and (5) the jury did not act arbitrarily when it chose not to find Defendant’s history, or lack thereof, of criminal activity to be worth of mitigating the punishment for his crime.
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