discretion in recommending the death penalty, and that his appellate counsel was constitutionally deficient in failing to pursue this challenge before the North Carolina Supreme Court on direct appeal. Although Fisher is correct in his assertion that North Carolina’s “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel” aggravating circumstance, standing alone, is unconstitutionally vague, see Maynard, 486 U.S. at 364, 108 S.Ct. 1853 (“To say that something is ‘especially heinous’ merely suggests that the individual jurors should determine that the murder is more than just ‘heinous,’ whatever that means, and an ordinary person could honestly believe that every unjustified, intentional taking of human life is ‘especially heinous.’ ”); see Smith v. Dixon, 14 F.3d 956, 974 (4th Cir.1994) (en banc) (<HOLDING>), this does not end our inquiry. In its prior
holding that a limit ing instruction which defined the terms heinous atrocious or cruel in equally vague language was not constitutionally sufficient holding that there is no serious argument that the especially heinous cruel or depraved aggravating factor is not facially vague recognizing that north carolinas heinous atrocious or cruel aggravating circumstance requires a limiting construction holding that oklahomas especially heinous atrocious or cruel aggravating circumstance was unconstitutionally vague holding that heinous atrocious or cruel is unconstitutionally vague language