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 According to Black's Law Dictionary (the most widely-used law dictionary in the United States) the term "aggravation" means "any circumstance attending the commission of a crime or tort which increases its guilt or enormity or adds to its injurious consequences, but which is above and beyond the essential constituents of the crime or tort itself."
In simple terms, an aggravating circumstance is a kind of attendant circumstance which increases the guilt of the crime as opposed to an extenuating or mitigating circumstance which decreases guilt. An example of mitigating circumstances would be when a man is found guilty of "manslaughter" rather than "murder" since he was suffering from medication side-effects which affected his judgment at the time.
Ohio Aggravated Murder Law
Ohio lays out specific attendant circumstances which constitute aggravated murder:
(A) No person shall purposely, and with prior calculation and design, cause the death of another or the unlawful termination of another's pregnancy.
(B) No person shall purposely cause the death of another or the unlawful termination of another's pregnancy while committing or attempting to commit, or while fleeing immediately after committing or attempting to commit, kidnapping, rape, aggravated arson, arson, aggravated robbery, robbery, aggravated burglary, burglary, terrorism, or escape.
(C) No person shall purposely cause the death of another who is under thirteen years of age at the time of the commission of the offense.
(D) No person who is under detention as a result of having been found guilty of or having pleaded guilty to a felony or who breaks that detention shall purposely cause the death of another.
(E) No person shall purposely cause the death of a law enforcement officer whom the offender knows or has reasonable cause to know is a law enforcement officer when either of the following applies:
(1) The victim, at the time of the commission of the offense, is engaged in the victim's duties.
(2) It is the offender's specific purpose to kill a law enforcement officer.
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In the News: In April of 1992, Daniel Wilson was sentenced to death for the aggravated murder of Carol Lutz. Lutz died in 1991 when Wilson locked her in the back of a car which he then set on fire. His defense attorneys argued that there were several mitigating circumstances present, including Wilson's abuse as a child and his expression of deep remorse. Despite these factors, Wilson died by lethal injection on June 2, 2009 at the Lucasville prison. He is the 29th person to be executed in Ohio since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1999.
(State v. Wilson, 2009 Ohio 2347)
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Mitigating Circumstances in Ohio
The court, trial jury, or panel of three judges shall consider, and weigh against the aggravating circumstances proved beyond a reasonable doubt, the nature and circumstances of the offense, the history, character, and background of the offender, and all of the following factors with regards to the death penalty:
(1) Whether the victim of the offense induced or facilitated it;
(2) Whether it is unlikely that the offense would have been committed, but for the fact that the offender was under duress, coercion, or strong provocation;
(3) Whether, at the time of committing the offense, the offender, because of a mental disease or defect, lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of the offender's conduct or to conform the offender's conduct to the requirements of the law;
(4) The youth of the offender;
(5) The offender's lack of a significant history of prior criminal convictions and delinquency adjudications;
(6) If the offender was a participant in the offense but not the principal offender, the degree of the offender's participation in the offense and the degree of the offender's participation in the acts that led to the death of the victim;
(7) Any other factors that are relevant to the issue of whether the offender should be sentenced to death.
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In the News: On February 2, 2007, Kenneth Rutherford was indicted on one count of burglary, a felony of the second degree, and one count of aggravated arson, a felony of the first degree. The charges stemmed from allegations that on May 14, 2006, Rutherford, his cousin, and a friend broke into an apartment to steal drugs and, while there, Rutherford started a fire. Following a jury trial, Rutherford was convicted as charged, and the trial court sentenced him to serve seven years in prison for his burglary conviction, nine years in prison for his aggravated arson conviction, and ordered him to serve those sentences consecutively. (State v. Rutherford, 2009 Ohio 1162)
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