Hamm v. Smith · ¶75

A jury convicted Smith of murdering Van Dam and recommended that he be sentenced to death. The trial court found three aggravating circumstances and no significant mitigating circumstances. The three aggravating circumstances were that Smith was on leave from his term of imprisonment for burglary at the time of the murder; that the murder occurred during a robbery; and “that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.” Smith v. State, 795 So. 2d 788, 797, n. 1, 841–842 (Ala. Crim. App. 2000) (per cu riam). As for mitigating circumstances, the trial court rejected Smith's arguments that his bad upbringing or lack of intelligence justified a sentence other than death. It explained that Smith's upbringing did not “ `justify a[n] act of senseless rage directed at an innocent human being.' ” Id., at 841. And it found that Smith's “ `lack of intelligence is not an excuse for…

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