Urbin v. State

In Urbin v. State, 714 So. 2d 411 (Fla. 1998), the Court held a death sentence to be disproportionate where the trial court found three aggravators (i.e., prior violent felony, committed for purpose of preventing lawful arrest, and committed during commission of robbery and for pecuniary gain (merged)), and six mitigators (i.e., Urbin's age at the time of the crime, his capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or conform his conduct to the requirements of law was substantially impaired, absence of his father, drug and alcohol abuse, the imprisonment of his mother, his dyslexia, and his employment history). See 714 So. 2d at 415 n.2. The Court reasoned that Urbin's age and the fact that "Urbin's capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct was substantially impaired" were weighty mitigators. Id. at 417-18. The prosecutor commented during closing statements: "Now this defendant wants a life sentence for robbing somebody and murdering them. What kind of message would that send--what kind of message would a life recommendation send to this defendant?" Id. at 421. The Court held that the statement was improper even though the prosecutor urged the jury to send a message to the defendant and not the community. Id. The Court explained the proportionality review: Proportionality review "requires a discrete analysis of the facts," Terry v. State, 668 So. 2d 954, 965 (Fla. 1996), entailing a qualitative review by this Court of the underlying basis for each aggravator and mitigator rather than a quantitative analysis. We underscored this imperative in Tillman v. State, 591 So. 2d 167 (Fla. 1991): The Court has described the "proportionality review" conducted by this Court as follows: Because death is a unique punishment, it is necessary in each case to engage in a thoughtful, deliberate proportionality review to consider the totality of circumstances in a case, and to compare it with other capital cases. It is not a comparison between the number of aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Porter v. State, 564 So. 2d 1060, 1064 (Fla. 1990). The requirement that death be administered proportionately has a variety of sources in Florida law, including the Florida Constitution's express prohibition against unusual punishments. Art. I, 17, Fla. Const. . . . Thus, proportionality review is a unique and highly serious function of this Court, the purpose of which is to foster uniformity in death-penalty law. Id. at 169. As the Court reaffirmed, proportionality review involves consideration of "the totality of the circumstances in a case" in comparison with other death penalty cases. Sliney v. State, 699 So. 2d 662, 672 (Fla. 1997) (citing Terry, 668 So. 2d at 965). Urbin, 714 So. 2d at 416-17.