State v. Stanley

*333EXUM, Justice.

The dispositive issue in this appeal concerns the propriety of permitting the jury to consider whether the murder committed by defendant was “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel,” as those terms are used in N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-2000(e)(9). After a careful review of the facts and our prior decisions, we conclude this aggravating factor should not have been submitted to the jury. Since this is the only aggravating circumstance submitted and there is no evidence of any other which could have been submitted, we vacate the judgment imposing a sentence of death and in lieu…