Cases | Warner v. State, 144 P.3d 838 (Okla. Crim. App. 2006) | 2018
The defendant was convicted of the rape and murder of his girlfriend’s 11 month old daughter; he was sentenced to 75 years in prison and death. The defendant argued many issues on appeal, including that the victim impact statement unduly emphasized and addressed only the emotional impact of the victim’s death and that its probative value was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice; he also argued that the trial court failed to follow appropriate procedures for admission of the evidence and that the evidence violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments by upsetting the balance of aggravating and mitigating evidence. The court of appeals held that even though the victim impact evidence from the victim’s mother came close to focusing too much on the emotional impact of the victim’s death, it was within the bounds of admissible evidence. The court of appeals also held that “the trial court’s failure to explicitly find evidence of at least one aggravating circumstance before admitting victim impact evidence was harmless error.” Because admission of the victim impact evidence did not prevent the jury from making a “reasoned moral decision” on the imposition of the death penalty, the judgments and sentences were affirmed.