Anderson v. State, 242 S.W.3d 229 (Ark. 2006)

Cases | Anderson v. State, 242 S.W.3d 229 (Ark. 2006) | 2018

The defendant was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. He appealed his conviction and sentence. The conviction was affirmed, but the sentence of death was reversed and remanded. He then appealed his sentence of death entered on remand, arguing, among other things, that the circuit court erred in denying his motions to exclude victim-impact evidence. The Supreme Court of Arkansas affirmed, finding first that the victim-impact evidence admitted in this case did not act as an aggravating circumstance, and did not violate the statutory weighing process set out in Arkansas’s capital murder statutes. The victim-impact evidence was admissible and relevant to the question of the punishment to be imposed as a consequence of the injury caused by the crime.