Beck v. Commonwealth

Present: All the Justices

CHRISTOPHER BECK
OPINION BY JUSTICE LAWRENCE L. KOONTZ, JR.
v. Record No. 962431 APRIL 18, 1997

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF ARLINGTON COUNTY
William T. Newman, Jr., Judge

In this appeal, we review the capital murder convictions and

the death sentences imposed by the trial court, sitting without a

jury, on Christopher Beck. The principal issues presented are

whether the trial court erred in receiving "victim impact

evidence" from persons other than family members of the victims

and in receiving "recommendations" concerning the imposition of

the death penalty from the victims' friends and family members.
I. PROCEEDINGS

Beck was charged with multiple offenses including capital

murder, burglary, rape, robbery, and use of a firearm in the

commission of these offenses. Prior to trial, Beck filed a

motion to suppress the introduction of all statements made by him

to the police and any evidence obtained as a result. After

reviewing the statements, receiving additional evidence, and

hearing argument of counsel, the trial court denied this motion.

Beck does not assign error to this action of the trial court.

Beck also filed a motion challenging the constitutionality

of Virginia's capital murder statute and the attendant statutes

governing trial and appellate procedures in death penalty cases.

The trial court denied this motion without comment.

At trial, Beck pled guilty to the capital murder of his
cousin Florence Marie Marks during or subsequent to rape or in

the commission of robbery while armed with a deadly weapon, Code

§ 18.2-31(4) and (5), the capital murder of William Miller in the

commission of robbery while armed with a deadly weapon, Code

§ 18.2-31(4), the capital murder of David Stuart Kaplan in the

commission of robbery while armed with a deadly weapon, Code

§ 18.2-31(4), as well as statutory burglary, rape, three offenses

of robbery, and seven offenses of the use of a firearm. * At the

time the pleas were taken, the Commonwealth, at the trial court's

direction, made a proffer of the evidence of Beck's guilt. This

proffer referred the trial court principally to statements made

by Beck to the police which the trial court had reviewed during

the suppression hearing. On the basis of this proffer, the trial

court accepted the pleas and found Beck guilty.
Following the acceptance of Beck's pleas, the trial court

granted a continuance prior to beginning the sentencing phase of

the trial. During the continuance, the trial court received a

large number of letters from family members and friends of the

victims which contained statements concerning the impact of

Beck's crimes and "recommendations" concerning the imposition of

the death penalty.

During the sentencing phase, the trial court heard evidence

in aggravation and in mitigation and fixed punishment for each of
*
Beck also pled guilty to the capital murder of the three
victims as part of a single act or transaction, Code
§ 18.2-31(7); that capital multiple murder charge was
subsequently nolle prossed and Beck's plea withdrawn. See
Clagett v. Commonwealth, 252 Va. 79, 96, 472 S.E.2d 263, 273
(1996).
the three capital murders at death premised upon findings of both

"vileness" and "future dangerousness." The trial court sentenced

Beck to four life terms plus a total 53 years' imprisonment for

the remaining offenses.

II. EVIDENCE

The critical facts are not in dispute and may be fairly

summarized as follows:

A. Beck's Statements to Police
Beck told police that several days before the murders he

formulated a plan to kill Miller, Beck's former employer. On

Monday, June 5, 1995, Beck traveled by bus from his home in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Washington, D.C., arriving there

at 6 p.m. The following morning Beck went to Arlington to the

house shared by Marks, Miller, and Kaplan. He arrived at the

house at 11 a.m., "walked around the perimeter," and then broke

in through a basement window under the porch.

Wrapping a sledge hammer he found in the basement with a

cloth to "muffle the sound," he used the sledge hammer to batter

a hole in a door to the first floor of the house. Beck then went

to Miller's apartment and chose a .22 caliber semi-automatic

pistol from several loaded guns Miller kept in the house; he

rejected another larger caliber weapon because its report would

be too loud. After loading a spare magazine for the pistol, Beck

went to the basement and waited for Miller to return home. As

Beck waited he became "nervous," but finally concluded, "I guess

I'll go through [with] it."

Later that afternoon, Beck heard the sound of someone
entering the basement. Beck raised the pistol to "arm level,"

and, as the door opened, he closed his eyes and fired two shots.

When Beck opened his eyes, he saw Marks on the basement floor.

Beck said, "you stupid bitch, why did you have to come home?" In

an attempt to make it appear that Marks had been raped and

robbed, Beck cut off most of her clothes and stabbed her in the

right buttock. He threw a condom he had found in the washer onto

the floor and, in a further effort to make it appear that Marks

had been sexually assaulted, he kicked her and penetrated her

vagina with a hammer. Beck reasoned that sexual assault evidence

would lead the police to believe that the crime had been

committed by a stranger and not by a family member. Beck then

went back upstairs to the first floor.
About one hour later, Miller returned home. Beck was on the

stairs leading to the second floor and hid behind the bannister.

Miller remained downstairs for a while and then started up the

stairs. Beck shot Miller in the face as he mounted the stairs.

Miller fell down the stairs as Beck continued to shoot him,

firing a total of five rounds at him. Beck put Miller's body in

Kaplan's apartment and threw a blanket over the body, "because I

got sick and tired looking" at it.

Later that evening, but while it was still light outside,

Kaplan returned home to find Miller's body lying in his room,

Beck with a gun in his hand, and blood "all over." As Kaplan

stared at the scene, Beck shot Kaplan in the back of the head.

Beck fired "several times and [Kaplan] just wouldn't die." As

Kaplan lay on the floor, he talked to Beck, saying, "hello, I'm
awake, hello." Beck fired what he believed was a full magazine

at Kaplan and then stabbed him in the head. Beck stated that he

"just wanted [Kaplan] to stop having the pain." After he was

stabbed, Kaplan appeared to have a "seizure" and then died.

Beck went back through the house taking several guns and two

bicycles. He also took cash from each of the victims. He took

the keys to Miller's car, changed his clothes, loaded the car

with the guns and bicycles, and drove to Washington, D.C., to see

a girl. As he left the house, Beck waved to the next door

neighbor.
After a parking mishap in the District of Columbia in which

Beck parked the car but neglected to engage the parking brake,

and the car rolled into another vehicle, Beck drove home to

Pennsylvania. Once there he hid the guns and "stashed" the

bicycles with a friend. He "cleaned the car of all prints[,]

wiped it all down," and abandoned it after covering the license

plates.

Beck was initially interviewed by Arlington County Police

officers at his mother's home in Philadelphia. Beck at first

claimed to have been transporting bicycles from Tennessee at the

time of the murders. When a friend failed to corroborate Beck's

alibi, Beck admitted to police that he had killed Marks, Miller

and Kaplan. After his arrest, Beck was returned to Arlington,

where he gave a full statement concerning the murders to police.

During his statement to the police, Beck was given a chance to

say something for himself; he said:
That ah I know what is like to kill somebody, its
one of the worst feelings you can live with that I
 don't know that it is pretty painful that is one of
those things that you can't go to sleep and I'm so
sorry that I did, I'm so sorry that I had all that
anger built up, I should had went to a counselor or
something could have prevented it. I don't know, I'm
sorry but I know this is going to be pretty hard for
people to believe what happened.

In addition to giving that statement, Beck assisted the

police in the recovery of the stolen car, guns, and bicycles.

B. Additional Evidence

Autopsies of the three victims revealed that each had

suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the head which had resulted

in rapid, if not immediate death. Dr. Frances Patricia Field, an

assistant chief medical examiner, testified that Marks had

sustained two gunshot wounds to the head. Dr. Field concluded

that either of these gunshot wounds could have been lethal. In

addition, the autopsy revealed that Marks had sustained multiple

bruises on her body, a stab wound in the right buttock, and

"hyperemia or redness in the left back part of the entrance to

the vagina."
Miller's autopsy revealed bruises and abrasions of the lower

extremities and several gunshot wounds to the face. Dr. Field

concluded that the bullet which entered the left side of the head

would have caused death "relatively quick[ly] if not

instantaneously."

Kaplan's autopsy revealed the presence of seven gunshot

wounds. Kaplan had sustained wounds to the left side of the

head, the left and right sides of the face, the left side of the

chin, the top and right side of the nose, and the left upper

chest. In the medical examiner's opinion, only the bullets which
entered the chest and the head below the ear would have been

immediately or rapidly fatal. Dr. Field was unable to determine

the order in which the wounds had been inflicted.

At the time the plea was taken, in addition to referring the

trial court to Beck's statements, the Commonwealth made the

proffer that a used condom found in the house was analyzed and

that genetic material of both Marks and Beck was found. This

evidence was in direct conflict with Beck's statement concerning

the rape of Marks.
At sentencing, the trial court received evidence of Beck's

prior criminal history. Beck, at the age of 14 years, was

charged with aggravated assault after he pushed his high school

teacher, Joyce Leff, as he left her class. According to Ms.

Leff, Beck was "hostile towards authority, didn't want to do any

class work." Beck wore "a jacket with swastikas on it" until a

school vice principal asked him not to wear it. When Beck told

Leff that he had guns he "used to target shoot the neighbor's

house," she became "very afraid" and re-arranged her classroom so

that she was not visible from outside the classroom. Leff

further testified that Beck was in a special education class and

read on a first or second grade level; she felt he was

"emotionally disturbed . . . [v]ery hostile, full of rage and

anger." Beck subsequently was committed to the Pennsylvania

Department of Welfare in 1991 after an incident in which he

threatened to harm his former girlfriend and her parents. While

in the jail segregation unit awaiting the present trial, Beck

substituted disinfectant for mouthwash belonging to one inmate
and struck another inmate. In addition, Beck wrote a document

describing his feelings in which he incorporated the phrase: "I'm

sorry but I love killing."

Dr. Dewey G. Cornell, a clinical psychologist and professor

at the University of Virginia, diagnosed Beck as learning

disabled, suffering from attention deficit and hyperactivity

disorder (ADHD), and antisocial personality disorder. Dr. Evan

Nelson, a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in forensic

psychology, also concluded that Beck suffers from ADHD and a

learning disability. Dr. Nelson did not conclude that Beck

suffers from antisocial personality disorder, but conceded that

he met all the criteria for such a diagnosis. He opined that

neglect by Beck's mother was the primary cause of Beck's

pathology. According to Dr. Nelson, Beck is able to express

regret but lacks the capacity to experience remorse.
C. Victim Impact Evidence

Prior to sentencing, Beck's attorney asked the trial court

not to consider "victim impact" type evidence submitted by

persons other than members of the victims' families. The trial

court observed that the decision in Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S.
808 (1991), permitted it to "go either way." The trial court

indicated that it would be necessary to review the materials to

make a determination of their admissibility, and that the court

would make its decision based upon the closeness of the

relationship between the victim and the witness. Beck renewed

the objection to non-family victim impact evidence at the outset

of the sentencing hearing, but did not raise express objections
to any specific evidence or testimony.

Among the documents received by the trial court were letters

from family members, co-workers, and friends of the victims, and

numerous letters sent to Kaplan's parents. Included with these

were news accounts and essays written by co-workers of Kaplan,

who was a journalist. Some of the letters included the authors'

views favoring imposition of a death sentence or life

imprisonment.
III. ISSUES WAIVED

Beck assigns error to the trial court's denial of his motion

to declare Virginia's death penalty statute unconstitutional and

to prohibit imposition of the death penalty on the ground that

Virginia's procedures for trial and appellate consideration of

the death sentence are also unconstitutional and violate the

Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual

punishment and the 14th Amendment's guarantee of due process.

These assignments of error seek to raise issues that Beck waived

by the entry of his guilty pleas and, thus, they are not

cognizable in this appeal. See Murphy v. Commonwealth, 246 Va.

136, 141, 431 S.E.2d 48, 51, cert.denied, 510 U.S. 928 (1993);

Savino v. Commonwealth, 239 Va. 534, 539, 391 S.E.2d 276, 278-79,

cert. denied, 498 U.S. 882 (1990); Stout v. Commonwealth, 237 Va.

126, 131-32, 376 S.E.2d 288, 291, cert. denied, 492 U.S. 925

(1989).

IV. VICTIM IMPACT EVIDENCE

Beck asserts that it was improper for the trial court to

receive victim impact evidence from persons not related to the
victims. Beck's initial position is that such evidence is

constitutionally barred because it exceeds the scope of victim

impact testimony permitted by the United States Supreme Court's

decision in Payne. Beck further asserts that even if not

constitutionally barred, admission of such evidence is not

permitted under Virginia's criminal procedure code. We will

consider each of these assertions in turn.

A. Constitutional Admissibility
We have previously decided that "victim impact testimony is

relevant to punishment in a capital murder prosecution in

Virginia." Weeks v. Commonwealth, 248 Va. 460, 476, 450 S.E.2d

379, 389-90 (1994), cert. denied, 516 U.S. ___, 116 S.Ct. 100

(1995). There, we relied on the statement in Payne that "[a]

State may legitimately conclude that evidence about the victim

and about the impact of the murder on the victim's family is

relevant to the . . . decision as to whether or not the death

penalty shall be imposed." 501 U.S. at 827.

Citing the foregoing language in Payne, Beck maintains that
Payne limits the source of victim impact evidence to family

members. We disagree. No such limitation is either express or

implied by this language. To the contrary, the Court was

describing the nature, not the source, of victim impact evidence.

Indeed, it has been expressly recognized that the impact of the

loss of the victim of a murder may extend beyond the victim's

family members to the victim's friends and community. Id. at 830

(O'Connor, J., concurring). Human experience and common

knowledge support this recognition of the unique worth of the
individual. Thus, there is no merit to Beck's assertion that

victim impact evidence is constitutionally limited to that

received from the victim's family members.

We hold that the admissibility of victim impact evidence

during the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial is limited

only by the relevance of such evidence to show the impact of the

defendant's actions. While statements from the immediate family

members of the deceased will normally be the best source of such

evidence, the Eighth Amendment does not restrict the trial court

from looking to statements of others well acquainted with the

victim. Such evidence provides the sentencing authority with an

understanding of the individualized circumstances present in the

life of the victim and the specific harm caused by the crime in

question. Id. at 825. So long as its prejudicial effect does

not outweigh its probative value, such evidence is beneficial to

the determination of an individualized sentence as is required by

the Eighth Amendment. Id.; see also Wesley v. State, 916 P.2d

793, 804 (Nev. 1996)(victim impact evidence from neighbors,

co-workers and others did not violate defendant's Eighth

Amendment rights).
B. Statutory Admissibility

Beck asserts that even if constitutionally permissible, the

criminal procedure provisions within Title 19.2 of the Virginia

Code limit victim impact evidence in a capital murder case to

that received from the victim's family members. In support of

this position, Beck relies upon Code §§ 19.2-11.01, 19.2-264.5

and 19.2-299.1. Beck asserts that, when read in concert, these
three statutes provide only for gathering and presentation of

evidence from those persons designated as "victims" under the

Crime Victim and Witness Rights Act (the Act). Code § 19.2-11.01

to -11.4. We disagree.

Pertinent to our resolution of this issue, the code

prescribes:
§ 19.2-11.01. Crime victim and witness rights.

A. In recognition of the Commonwealth's concern
for the victims and witnesses of crime, it is the
purpose of this chapter to ensure that the full impact
of crime is brought to the attention of the courts of
the Commonwealth;
. . . .

4. Victim input.

a. Victims shall be given the opportunity,
pursuant to § 19.2-299.1, to prepare a written victim
impact statement prior to sentencing of a defendant and
may provide information to any individual or agency
charged with investigating the social history of a
person or preparing a victim impact statement under the
provisions of §§ 16.1-273 and 53.1-155 or any other
applicable law.

. . . .

B. For purposes of this chapter, "victim"
means. . . a spouse, parent or legal guardian of such a
person who . . . was the victim of a homicide.
§ 19.2-264.5. Post-sentence reports.

When the punishment of any person has been fixed
at death, the court shall, before imposing sentence,
direct a probation officer of the court to thoroughly
investigate the history of the defendant and any and
all other relevant facts, to the end that the court may
be fully advised as to whether the sentence of death is
appropriate and just. Reports shall be made, presented
and filed as provided in § 19.2-299 except that,
notwithstanding any other provision of law, such
reports shall in all cases contain a Victim Impact
Statement. Such statement shall contain the same
information and be prepared in the same manner as
Victim Impact Statements prepared pursuant to
 § 19.2-299.1. After consideration of the report, and
upon good cause shown, the court may set aside the
sentence of death and impose a sentence of imprisonment
for life.
§ 19.2-299.1. When Victim Impact Statement required;
contents; uses.

The presentence report prepared pursuant to
§ 19.2-299 shall, with the consent of the victim, as
defined in § 19.2-11.01, in all cases involving
offenses other than capital murder, include a Victim
Impact Statement. Victim Impact Statements in all
cases involving capital murder shall be prepared and
submitted in accordance with the provisions of
§ 19.2-264.5.
A Victim Impact Statement shall be kept
confidential and shall be sealed upon entry of the
sentencing order. If prepared by someone other than
the victim, it shall . . . provide such other
information as the court may require related to the
impact of the offense upon the victim.

Beck asserts that by limiting the definition of "victim" in

the Act to the "spouse, parent or legal guardian" of the

deceased, the legislature implicitly intended to limit the

admissibility of victim impact evidence to that provided by such

persons for the reports described in Code §§ 19.2-264.5 and

19.2-299.1. There is no merit to this assertion.

While the Act provides for the right of victims, as defined

therein, to prepare a written impact statement, nothing within

the Act limits the nature of victim impact evidence to such

statements alone. Similarly, the reference to the Act in Code

§ 19.2-299.1 merely defines the person or persons whose consent

the Commonwealth must obtain in order to include the victim

impact statement in the sentencing report. Moreover, by its

express terms Code § 19.2-299.1 exempts the Commonwealth from

having to obtain such consent in capital murder trials, and the
preparation of a victim impact report in a capital murder trial,

though done in the same manner as other such reports under Code

§ 19.2-299.1, is mandated by Code § 19.2-264.5.

The clear import of the Act is to preserve the right of

victims of crimes to have the impact of those crimes upon their

lives considered as part of the sentencing process, if that is

their wish, and to protect their privacy thereafter. The

requirement in Code § 19.2-299.1 of obtaining victim consent to

include the statement of the victim in the pre-sentence report is

further recognition of the right of victims to maintain their

privacy if they so desire. By exempting the Commonwealth from

having to seek such consent when presenting victim impact

evidence during capital murder trials, the legislature has

recognized expressly that the impact of such crimes is of such

magnitude as to require the consideration of victim impact

evidence even at the risk of intruding upon the sensibilities of

those closest to the victim.
Nothing in Code § 19.2-299.1 expressly or implicitly limits

the sources on which the Commonwealth may draw in its preparation

of the victim impact portion of the presentence report. Rather,

the report is to contain whatever information the trial court

"may require related to the impact of the offense upon the

victim."

Accordingly, we hold that the statutes do not limit evidence

of victim impact to that received from the victim's family

members. Rather, the circumstances of the individual case will

dictate what evidence will be necessary and relevant, and from
what sources it may be drawn. In a capital murder trial, as in

any other criminal proceeding, the determination of the

admissibility of relevant evidence is within the sound discretion

of the trial court subject to the test of abuse of that

discretion. See Coe v. Commonwealth, 231 Va. 83, 87, 340 S.E.2d

820, 823 (1986); Stamper v. Commonwealth, 220 Va. 260, 269-70,

257 S.E.2d 808, 815-16 (1979), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 972 (1980).

C. Admissibility and Consideration of Evidence Received
We now turn to the victim impact evidence actually received

by the trial court during the sentencing phase of Beck's trial.

In doing so, we stress that this was a trial without a jury. In

responding to Beck's generalized objections to its receiving

victim impact evidence, the trial court stated that it would

assess each statement to determine whether the relationship of

the declarant to the victims was sufficient to warrant the trial

court's consideration, limiting that consideration to the

testimony of family members and close friends of the victims.

The trial court further stated that it was "mindful of the types

of statements that would be inappropriate for its consideration."

Although provided with the opportunity to review the victim

impact evidence prior to sentencing, Beck did not raise any

particularized objection to the admission of any statement or

testimony. Accordingly, we need only consider whether the trial

court erred in considering the evidence received.

As noted above, the determination of admissibility of

relevant evidence is within the sound discretion of the trial

court. In order to exercise that discretion, the trial court
must weigh the relevance and probative value of the evidence

against its potential undue prejudice to the defendant. "A

judge, unlike a juror, is uniquely suited by training, experience

and judicial discipline to disregard potentially prejudicial

comments and to separate, during the mental process of

adjudication, the admissible from the inadmissible, even though

he has heard both." Eckhart v. Commonwealth, 222 Va. 213, 216,

279 S.E.2d 155, 157 (1981); see also Williams v. Commonwealth,

234 Va. 168, 182, 360 S.E.2d 361, 369 (1987), cert. denied, 484
U.S. 1020 (1988). Here, the trial court's statements clearly

establish its awareness of this responsibility.

In reviewing an exercise of discretion, we do not substitute

our judgment for that of the trial court. Rather, we consider

only whether the record fairly supports the trial court's action.

We find that none of the declarants of the victim impact

evidence received by the trial court was so far removed from the

victims as to have nothing of value to impart to the court about

the impact of these crimes. Thus, the determination that this

evidence was relevant and probative of the issue under

consideration was clearly within the trial court's discretion.

Similarly, our review of the content of the victim impact

evidence reveals no statement concerning the impact of the crimes

so inherently prejudicial that its admission would constitute an

abuse of discretion. Accordingly, to whatever extent that the

trial court chose to consider the evidence it received, we cannot

say that doing so constituted an abuse of its discretion.
D. Evidence of "Recommendations" for Imposition of Death Penalty
 Beck further asserts that the trial court erred in

considering statements contained within the victim impact

evidence which "recommended" the imposition of the death penalty.

The mere fact that the trial court received statements from

family and friends of the victims in which the imposition of the

death penalty was urged as an appropriate sentence does not

establish that the trial court relied upon those statements in

reaching its judgment. See Smith v. Commonwealth, 239 Va. 243,

268, 389 S.E.2d 871, 885, cert. denied, 498 U.S. 881 (1990).
Moreover, the trial judge, by virtue of his training and

experience, is presumed to have separated the permissible victim

impact evidence from any potentially prejudicial statements, if

any, concerning sentencing and to have considered only the

former.** The record amply supports the conclusion that this was

done in this case and that the trial court's judgment was not

made in an arbitrary manner.

V. SENTENCE REVIEW

Beck's remaining assignments of error challenge the

imposition of the death sentences on the ground that the evidence

failed to establish the predicate determinations of future

dangerousness and vileness and that the sentences were excessive

and were imposed under undue influence of passion.

**
We do not mean to suggest that we agree with Beck's
characterization of the lay witnesses' statements with regard to
the imposition of the death sentence in this case as
"recommendations" to the trial court, or that the trial court
received them as such. Rather, we believe these statements were
received by the trial court as expressions of the depth of the
witnesses' feelings concerning the impact of these crimes.
A. Sufficiency of the Evidence to Support Predicate Determination

The record contains sufficient evidence to support the trial

court's finding of future dangerousness. Beck attempts to

minimize the evidence of his prior criminal history and

subsequent violent acts while incarcerated. This evidence,

however, must be considered not in isolation, but in the context

of the present offenses. The circumstances surrounding the

commission of the capital murder of Miller were sufficient to

establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Beck would commit future

criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing

threat to society. See Code § 19.2-264.4(C); Murphy, 246 Va. at

144, 431 S.E.2d at 53. By his own admission, Beck planned and

executed that murder, in the process killing his cousin Marks,

and then remaining at the crime scene to kill Kaplan. These

facts, along with the evidence of Beck's prior and subsequent

actions, provided sufficient evidence from which the trial court

could conclude that Beck placed no value on human life and would

kill others whenever it suited him to do so. See Goins v.

Commonwealth, 251 Va. 442, 468, 470 S.E.2d 114, 131, cert.

denied, 519 U.S. ___, 117 S.Ct. 222 (1996).

Beck's sole contention with respect to the determination of

vileness is that the term is unconstitutionally vague. We have

already addressed and rejected this argument in Breard v.

Commonwealth, 248 Va. 68, 74, 445 S.E.2d 670, 675, cert. denied,

513 U.S. 971 (1994). A finding of "vileness" must be based on

conduct which is "outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or

inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind or an
aggravated battery to the victim." Code § 19.2-264.2. Proof of

any one of these three components will support a finding of

vileness. Id.; Mueller v. Commonwealth, 244 Va. 386, 411, 422

S.E.2d 380, 395 (1992), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 1043 (1993). We

hold that the evidence sufficiently established Beck's depravity

of mind to warrant a finding of vileness.

B. Proportionality Review

Code § 17-110.1(C) requires us to review the death sentences

imposed on Beck to determine whether (1) they were imposed under

the influence of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary

factor; or (2) they are excessive or disproportionate to the

penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the crimes and

the defendant. We will combine the review required by statute

with the identical issues raised by Beck in his appeal.
In support of his contention that the death sentences were

imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or other

arbitrary factor, Beck asserts that the trial court failed to

give consideration to mitigating evidence. This argument is

merely conclusory and we find nothing in the record to support

it. To the contrary, the record contains the trial judge's

statement that he "carefully considered the aggravating and the

mitigating circumstances found to exist in this case," and the

judgment orders state that the trial court took into

consideration "all of the evidence in the case." See Boggs v.
Commonwealth, 229 Va. 501, 522, 331 S.E.2d 407, 422 (1985), cert.

denied, 475 U.S. 1031 (1986). Additionally, our independent

review of the trial record fails to disclose that the sentences
of death were imposed under the influence of any of the statutory

factors.

In conducting our proportionality review, we must determine

"whether other sentencing bodies in this jurisdiction generally

impose the supreme penalty for comparable or similar crimes,

considering both the crime and the defendant." Jenkins v.

Commonwealth, 244 Va. 445, 461, 423 S.E.2d 360, 371 (1992), cert.

denied, 507 U.S. 1036 (1993); see also Code § 17-110.1(C)(2). We

have examined the records of all capital murder cases reviewed by

this Court, under Code § 17-110.1(E), including those cases in

which a life sentence was imposed. We have given particular

attention to those cases in which the death penalty was based on

both the "future dangerousness" and the "vileness" predicates.
Based on this review, we conclude that Beck's death

sentences are not excessive or disproportionate to penalties

generally imposed by other sentencing bodies in the Commonwealth

for comparable crimes. See, e.g., Jenkins, supra; Briley v.
Commonwealth, 221 Va. 563, 273 S.E.2d 57 (1980); Stamper, supra.

VI. Conclusion

We find no reversible error in the judgments of the trial

court. Having reviewed Beck's death sentences pursuant to Code

§ 17-110.1, we decline to commute the sentences of death.

Accordingly, we will affirm the trial court's judgments.

Affirmed.