Cases | Alverson v. State, 983 P.2d 498 (Okla. Crim. App. 1999) | 2018
The defendant and his co-defendant, with two of their friends, robbed a convenience store and beat to death the night clerk. The defendant was convicted of murder and robbery with a dangerous weapon and was sentenced to death. On automatic appeal, the defendant argued many issues, including that victim impact testimony from the victim’s wife and mother should not have been admitted. He argued that the wife’s statements about how she enjoyed coking and ironing for the victim, that birthdays and holidays were special to the victim, and that he loved Christmas because he was raised in a family that didn’t celebrate it exceeded the limitations on victim impact testimony. The court held that, although the comment about not having celebrated Christmas as a child was arguably impermissible, taken as a whole, the wife’s testimony was not “inflammatory enough to run the risk that the jury’s sentence of death was something other than a ‘reasoned moral response’ to the evidence.” The defendant also argued that the mother’s testimony that her son did not cause her trouble, that he had a bright future, and that he promised to take care of her in her old age was also inappropriate. The court again disagreed, holding that these statements show “the financial and emotional impact of the crime on one of the victim’s survivors.” The judgments and sentences were affirmed.