ultimate punishment for the worst offenders. However, the people ultimately will have to decide whether a capital system that yields such widely disparate outcomes serves a legitimate penological purpose, whether it is any longer worth the financial expense and cost in lost expectations, and whether it is more harmful than healing to the innocent families who have lost loved ones. 1 Although not required by the Federal Constitution, our capital system provides that a death-sentenced defendant is entitled to a "proportionality review" to "determine whether the sentence is disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the crime and the defendant.” N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3e; see also Pulley v. Harris, 465 U.S. 31, 50-51, 104 S.Ct. 871, 879, 79 L.Ed.2d 29, 40-41 (1984) (<HOLDING>). 2 This Court has heard oral arguments on the
holding that proportionality review not constitutionally required in state capitalsentencing scheme holding because right to counsel is constitutionally guaranteed in parental termination proceeding effective assistance of counsel is also constitutionally required recognizing that enhancement requires control over a participant in the scheme not only control over the scheme itself holding that presumption of innocence and reasonable doubt standard are constitutionally required in criminal cases holding that false statements are constitutionally protected