Death sentence overturned for Kevin Jackson, 1990
Asbury Park Press 19 Apr 1990
The state Supreme Court Wednesday overturned a death sentence for a 27-year-old convicted murderer from Lakewood who killed a school teacher in 1985 by stabbing her 53 times.
In returning the case to the lower courts for a possible retrial, the high court ruled 7-0 that defendant Kevin Jackson, though he confessed to the crime, had never acknowledged during earlier trials that he had "purposely or knowingly" caused the death of 51-year-old Meredith Levithan of Brick Township on Sept. 9, 1985. She was his neighbor.
"This ruling may strike some as hyper-technical," says a 12-page opinion released Wednesday.
"After all, there is no danger here that we are about to execute an innocent man. Defendant has never denied that he murdered the victim," the judges said.
"The question, however, is not whether defendant is in any sense 'innocent,' but whether, under our law, he deserves the death penalty. His appeal is that the sentence to death be administered in accordance with law," the judges said.
When the court upheld New Jersey's death penalty law on March 5, 1987, it established rigid guidelines for deciding when the death sentence can be imposed.
In elaborating on these rules in a capital punishment case against a Pleasantville man in October, 1988, the court declared that prosecutors must prove that a murder was intentional before the death sentence will be permitted.
Jackson is one of 25 New Jersey inmates serving time on death row. All are in varying stages of appeal. Jackson's case is the 15th in which the court has overturned a death sentence due to failure to meet its guidelines.
Before the state's original death penalty law was abolished in 1972, about 160 persons were executed in the state, the last in 1963.
Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment nationally in 1976, more than 120 prisoners have been executed. None, however, have been from New Jersey.
According to court documents, Jackson was convicted Jan. 23, 1987, and sentenced to death on February 6, 1987. His original execution date was April 3, 1987.
Jackson's defense hinges largely on a legal distinction.
The Supreme Court has decided there are two forms of murder: those that are deliberate and pre-meditated, and those that occur without conscious forethought. The death penalty is allowed only in the former cases.
The justices ruled in Jackson's case that his confession, a key element in his prosecution, "is not an ineluctable admission of intent only to kill."
"The confession suggests that this killing was a sexual retaliation turned grotesque," the opinion states.
Nor does the extent of violence automatically establish intent, the judges said. Prior cases have found that in cases of multiple stabbings, juries must decide whether the wounds were intended to kill or solely to inflict pain.
The judges also said Jackson was not clearly informed of the extent to which his guilty plea could be used to impose a death sentence.
"This defendant was not correctly informed of the mental state necessary to make murder capital. These standards for accepting a guilty plea to capital murder must be exacting and scrupulously applied," said a separate, concurring opinion by Judge Alan Handler.
The state Supreme Court Wednesday overturned a death sentence for a 27-year-old convicted murderer from Lakewood who killed a school teacher in 1985 by stabbing her 53 times.
In returning the case to the lower courts for a possible retrial, the high court ruled 7-0 that defendant Kevin Jackson, though he confessed to the crime, had never acknowledged during earlier trials that he had "purposely or knowingly" caused the death of 51-year-old Meredith Levithan of Brick Township on Sept. 9, 1985. She was his neighbor.
"This ruling may strike some as hyper-technical," says a 12-page opinion released Wednesday.
"After all, there is no danger here that we are about to execute an innocent man. Defendant has never denied that he murdered the victim," the judges said.
"The question, however, is not whether defendant is in any sense 'innocent,' but whether, under our law, he deserves the death penalty. His appeal is that the sentence to death be administered in accordance with law," the judges said.
When the court upheld New Jersey's death penalty law on March 5, 1987, it established rigid guidelines for deciding when the death sentence can be imposed.
In elaborating on these rules in a capital punishment case against a Pleasantville man in October, 1988, the court declared that prosecutors must prove that a murder was intentional before the death sentence will be permitted.
Jackson is one of 25 New Jersey inmates serving time on death row. All are in varying stages of appeal. Jackson's case is the 15th in which the court has overturned a death sentence due to failure to meet its guidelines.
Before the state's original death penalty law was abolished in 1972, about 160 persons were executed in the state, the last in 1963.
Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment nationally in 1976, more than 120 prisoners have been executed. None, however, have been from New Jersey.
According to court documents, Jackson was convicted Jan. 23, 1987, and sentenced to death on February 6, 1987. His original execution date was April 3, 1987.
Jackson's defense hinges largely on a legal distinction.
The Supreme Court has decided there are two forms of murder: those that are deliberate and pre-meditated, and those that occur without conscious forethought. The death penalty is allowed only in the former cases.
The justices ruled in Jackson's case that his confession, a key element in his prosecution, "is not an ineluctable admission of intent only to kill."
"The confession suggests that this killing was a sexual retaliation turned grotesque," the opinion states.
Nor does the extent of violence automatically establish intent, the judges said. Prior cases have found that in cases of multiple stabbings, juries must decide whether the wounds were intended to kill or solely to inflict pain.
The judges also said Jackson was not clearly informed of the extent to which his guilty plea could be used to impose a death sentence.
"This defendant was not correctly informed of the mental state necessary to make murder capital. These standards for accepting a guilty plea to capital murder must be exacting and scrupulously applied," said a separate, concurring opinion by Judge Alan Handler.
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