Cochran v. State

James Willie Cochran, the appellant, was indicted for the offense of robbery when the victim is intentionally killed. Alabama Code § 13A-5-31(a)(2) (1975). A jury found him "guilty of the capital offense as charged in the indictment", and, after a hearing, recommended that his punishment be fixed at death. The trial judge accepted this recommendation and sentenced Cochran to death by electrocution. Eight issues are raised on appeal.

I

The procedural restructuring of the 1975 Death Penalty Law by the Alabama Supreme Court in Beck v. State, 396 So.2d 645 (Ala. 1980), was a constitutionally…