Martez Abram v. Mississippi

As required by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, Mississippi’s capital murder statute limits the types of homicides for which a conviction can be punishable by death. Among those are various forms of felony murder, including “[t]he killing of a human being . . . . [w]hen done with or without any design to effect death, by any person engaged in the commission of the crime of . . . arson.”1 Petitioner Martez Abram was convicted of capital murder even though the undisputed evidence proved that the two victims died before he set fire to the premises of a Wal-Mart store where Abram and the victims had worked together. At sentencing, in addition to the felony-murder aggravator,2 the jury also found as aggravating circumstances that the defendant “knowingly created a great risk of death to many persons,”3 and that both killings were “committed for the purpose of avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest or effecting an escape from custody.”4 As to the second death, the jury also found the aggravating circumstance that “[t]he capital offense was committed to disrupt or hinder the lawful exercise of any governmental function or the enforcement of laws.”5 The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and sentences. This presents the following questions to this Court: 1 Miss. Code Ann. § 97-3-19(2)(e). 2 Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-101(5)(d) (“[t]he capital offense was committed while the defendant was engaged, or was an accomplice, in the commission of, or an attempt to commit, or flight after committing or attempting to commit, any . . . arson . . . .”). 3 Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-101(5)(c). 4 Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-101(5)(e). 5 Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-101(5)(g).