California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Bacigalupo, 24 Cal.Rptr.2d 808, 6 Cal.4th 457, 862 P.2d 808 (Cal. 1993):
A fortiori, the Eighth Amendment must invalidate the aggravating factor comprising "the circumstances of the crime" as construed in Edwards. If juries are not adequately informed as to what they must find in order to impose the death penalty when they are told to determine whether the crime was "especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel" or "outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman," they are not informed at all when they are directed merely to " '[t]hat which surrounds materially, morally, or logically' the crime." (People v. Edwards, supra, 54 Cal.3d at p. 833, 1 Cal.Rptr.2d 696, 819 P.2d 436.)
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