State v. Wakefield

Defendant Brian Wakefield pled guilty to two counts of capital murder and eleven other offenses arising out of the home-invasion robbery, assault, and murder of seventy-year-old Richard Hazard and his sixty-four-year-old wife Shirley Hazard in their Pleasant-ville, New Jersey home on January 18, 2001. At his penalty phase trial, a jury unanimously found all of the aggravating factors alleged by the State; rejected, in whole or in part, all of the mitigating factors claimed by defendant; determined beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors; and…