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State v. Bondurant3/20/1998
e found in an area where the defendant told his wife he had burned the victim's body. The murder weapon the defendant told his wife he used, a small rocking chair, was missing from the victim's home after the victim's disappearance. The defendant admitted being with the victim on the evening the state theorized the victim was murdered, and the defendant endorsed the victim's paycheck on the same date. The defendant's alibi for the time of the murder could not be corroborated. Moreover, the defendant's prior conviction was not the cornerstone of the state's impeachment of him. To be sure, the defendant gave conflicting extra-judicial statements, and his trial testimony further conflicted with his pre-trial statements. Through his own inconsistency, he demonstrated his lack of credibility. Furthermore, the record reflects that several of the jurors who were accepted by the defense and who ultimately sat on the jury panel were aware of the defendant's prior second-degree murder conviction or the facts which gave rise to it. Given the state's mountain of evidence against the defendant, the defendant's comparatively implausible testimony (particularly in light of his contradictory pre-trial statements), and the jury's independent awareness of the defendant's criminal past, we are convinced it is not probable the outcome of the trial would have been different if this line of impeachment had not been pursued. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 693, 104 S.Ct. at 2065. As such, defendant's claim of ineffective assistance in this regard must fail.
IX. JURY INSTRUCTIONS AT SENTENCING PHASE
The defendant raises several challenges to the trial court's instructions to the jury during the sentencing phase. First, he contends that the trial court erred by instructing the jury on the heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravating factor. Specifically, the defendant argues that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding of either torture or depravity of mind and that the definitions given in the jury charge were unconstitutionally vague and overbroad and did not provide the jury with adequate guidance in applying this aggravating factor.
The jury was instructed on the heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravating circumstance as set forth in Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-2-203(i)(5)(1982), which provided that the murder was heinous, atrocious, or cruel in that it involved torture or depravity of mind. The trial court gave the following charge:
You are hereby instructed that the word, heinous, means grossly wicked or reprehensible, abominable, odious, vile. Atrocious means extremely evil or cruel, monstrous, exceptionally bad, abominable. Cruel means disposed to inflict pain or suffering; causing suffering, or painful. Torture means the infliction of severe physical or mental pain upon the victim, while he or she remains alive and conscious. And depravity means moral corruption, wicked, or perverse acts.
Our supreme court has consistently held that the language of Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-2-203(I)(5)(1982) is not unconstitutionally vague or overbroad. State v. Dicks, 615 S.W.2d 126, 131-32 (Tenn.); See also State v. Black, 815 S.W.2d 166, 181 (Tenn. 1991); State v. Barber, 753 S.W.2d 659, 670 (Tenn.). Specifically, in State v. Williams, 690 S.W.2d 517 (Tenn. 1985), our supreme court found the statute to be constitutional "so long as the abstract terms employed therein are construed and interpreted" as set forth in its opinion. Id. at 533. The trial court in Williams failed to "instruct the jury concerning the legal significance of the words 'heinous,' 'atrocious,' 'cruel,' 'torture,' or 'depravity of mind' as those terms are used in the aggravating circumstance define
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