Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/390/570/
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 10:39:20+00:00

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"shall be punished (1) by death if the kidnaped person has not been liberated unharmed, and if the verdict of the jury shall so recommend, or (2) by imprisonment for any term of years or for life, if the death penalty is not imposed."
Held: The death penalty clause imposes an impermissible burden upon the exercise of a constitutional right, but that provision is severable from the remainder of the Act and the unconstitutionality of that clause does not require the defeat of the Act as a whole. Pp. 390 U. S. 572-591.
. . . shall be punished (1) by death if the kidnaped person has not been liberated unharmed, and if the verdict of the jury shall so recommend, or (2) by imprisonment for any term of years or for life, if the death penalty is not imposed."
directly to this Court, [Footnote 4] and we noted probable jurisdiction. [Footnote 5] We reverse.
defendant chooses to submit to a jury the question of his guilt, the death penalty may be imposed if and only if both judge and jury concur in its imposition. On this understanding of the statute, the Government concludes that the death penalty provision of the Kidnaping Act does not operate to penalize the defendant who chooses to contest his guilt before a jury. It is unnecessary to decide here whether this conclusion would follow from the statutory scheme the Government envisions, [Footnote 6] for it is not, in fact, the scheme that Congress enacted.
of death, trial judges have simply carried out the mandate of the statute.
left punishment to the court's discretion [Footnote 11] and, instead, chose an alternative that shifted from a single judge to a jury of 12 the onus of inflicting the penalty of death. [Footnote 12] To accept the Government's suggestion that the jury's sentencing role be treated as merely advisory would return to the judge the ultimate duty that Congress deliberately placed in other hands.
The thrust of the clause in question was clearly expressed by the House Judiciary Committee that drafted it: Its purpose was, quite simply, "to permit the jury to designate a death penalty for the kidnaper." [Footnote 13] The fact that Congress chose the word "recommend" to describe what the jury would do in designating punishment cannot obscure the basic congressional objective of making the jury, rather than the judge the arbiter of the death sentence. The Government's contrary contention cannot stand.
of a jury convened for the sole purpose of deciding whether the accused should live or die.
"the decisional trend which has sought . . . to place the most humane construction on capital legislation." Yet it asks us to extend the capital punishment provision of the Federal Kidnaping Act in a new and uncharted direction without the compulsion of a legislative mandate and without the benefit of legislative guidance. That we decline to do.
It is no answer to urge, as does the Government, that federal trial judges may be relied upon to reject coerced pleas of guilty and involuntary waivers of jury trial. For the evil in the federal statute is not that it necessarily coerces guilty pleas and jury waivers, but simply that it needlessly encourages them. A procedure need not be inherently coercive in order that it be held to impose an impermissible burden upon the assertion of a constitutional right. Thus, the fact that the Federal Kidnaping Act tends to discourage defendants from insisting upon their innocence and demanding trial by jury hardly implies that every defendant who enters a guilty plea to a charge under the Act does so involuntarily. [Footnote 25] The power to reject coerced guilty pleas and involuntary jury waivers might alleviate, but it cannot totally eliminate, the constitutional infirmity in the capital punishment provision of the Federal Kidnaping Act.
of the criminal law. Consequently, it should require an unambiguous expression on the part of the Congress to withhold this authority in specified cases."
"The unconstitutionality of a part of an Act does not necessarily defeat . . . the validity of its remaining provisions. Unless it is evident that the legislature would not have enacted those provisions which are within its power independently of that which is not, the invalid part may be dropped if what is left is fully operative as a law. [Footnote 27] "
investigate and prosecute interstate kidnaping [Footnote 34] -- had not vanished during the intervening two years. It is therefore clear that Congress would have made interstate kidnaping a federal crime even if the death penalty provision had been ruled out from the beginning. It would be difficult to imagine a more compelling case for severability.
wrong as a matter of fact, for the length of imprisonment imposed under the Act can obviously be made to reflect the kidnaper's treatment of his victim. And it is wrong as a matter of logic, for nothing could more completely obliterate the distinction between "the penalties applicable to those who do and those who do not harm or kill their victims" than the total invalidation of all the penalties provided by the Federal Kidnaping Act -- the precise result sought by the appellees.
"On or about September 2, 1966, CHARLES JACKSON, also known as 'Batman,' also known as 'Butch,' and GLENN WALTER ALEXANDER DE LA MOTTE, and JOHN ALBERT WALSH, JR., the defendants herein, did knowingly transport in interstate commerce from Milford in the District of Connecticut to Alpine, New Jersey, one John Joseph Grant, III, a person who had theretofore been unlawfully seized, kidnapped, carried away and held by the defendants herein, for ransom and reward and for the purpose of aiding the said defendants to escape arrest, and the said John Joseph Grant, III, was harmed when liberated, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1201(a)."
Count two, charging transportation of a stolen motor vehicle from Connecticut to New York in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2312, has not been challenged, and is not now before us.
"shall, upon conviction, be punished (1) by death if the verdict of the jury shall so recommend, provided that the sentence of death shall not be imposed by the court if, prior to its imposition, the kidnaped person has been liberated unharmed, or (2) if the death penalty shall not apply nor be imposed the convicted person shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for such term of years as the court in its discretion shall determine. . . ."
"[w]hoever is convicted of any such crime, which has resulted in the death of any person, shall be subject . . . to the death penalty . . . if the jury shall in its discretion so direct, or, in the case of a plea of guilty, if the court in its discretion shall so order."
"shall be subject . . . to the death penalty . . . if the jury shall in its discretion so direct, or, in the case of a plea of guilty, or a plea of not guilty where the defendant has waived a trial by jury, if the court in its discretion shall so order."
"Under the present phraseology, it is doubtful whether the court could invoke the death penalty in a situation where the defendant has entered a plea of not guilty, waived his right to a trial by jury, and asked to be tried by the court."
It is established that due process forbids convicting a defendant on the basis of a coerced guilty plea. See, e.g., Herman. v. Claudy, 350 U. S. 116.
See United States v. Curry, 358 F.2d 904, 913-914 and n. 8. See also Andres v. United States, 333 U. S. 740, 333 U. S. 753-754 (Frankfurter, J., concurring).
See Laboy v. New Jersey, 266 F.Supp. 581, 584. So, too, in Griffin v. California, 380 U. S. 609, the Court held that comment on a defendant's failure to testify imposes an impermissible penalty on the exercise of the right to remain silent at trial. Yet it obviously does not follow that every defendant who ever testified at a pre-Griffin trial in a State where the prosecution could have commented upon his failure to do so is entitled to automatic release upon the theory that his testimony must be regarded as compelled.
The appellees correctly note that Champlin was a case where Congress had included a clause expressly authorizing the severance of any invalid provision, a fact upon which this Court relied in recognizing "a presumption that, eliminating invalid parts, the legislature would have been satisfied with what remained. . . ." 286 U. S. 210, 286 U. S. 235. But whatever relevance such an explicit clause might have in creating a presumption of severability, see Electric Bond Co. v. Comm'n, 303 U. S. 419, 303 U. S. 434, the ultimate determination of severability will rarely turn on the presence or absence of such a clause. Thus, for example, the Court in Champlin, after stating the basic test quoted above, cited cases in which invalid statutory provisions had been severed despite the absence of any provision for severability. Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 158 U. S. 601, 158 U. S. 635; Reagan v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 154 U. S. 362, 154 U. S. 395-396; Field v. Clark, 143 U. S. 649, 143 U. S. 695-696.
"it is not to be presumed that the legislature was legislating for the mere sake of imposing penalties, but the penalties . . . were simply in aid of the main purpose of the statute. They may fail, and still the great body of the statute have operative force, and the force contemplated by the legislature in its enactment."
"That whoever shall knowingly transport or cause to be transported, or aid or abet in transporting, in interstate or foreign commerce, any person who shall have been unlawfully seized, confined, inveigled, decoyed, kidnaped, abducted, or carried away by any means whatsoever and held for ransom or reward shall, upon conviction, be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for such term of years as the court, in its discretion, shall determine. . . ."
"[I]f what Congress is looking for is a headline, leave the death penalty in; but if we are looking for a real bill that will be a deterrent to kidnaping, take the Senate bill. [Applause.]"
"death if the verdict of the jury shall so recommend, provided that the sentence of death shall not be imposed by the court if, prior to its imposition, the kidnaped person has been liberated unharmed. . . ."
"Whoever shall knowingly transport or cause to be transported, or aid or abet in transporting, in interstate or foreign commerce, any person who shall have been unlawfully seized, confined, inveigled, decoyed, kidnaped, abducted, or carried away by any means whatsoever and held for ransom or reward or otherwise, except, in the case of a minor, by a parent thereof, shall, upon conviction, be punished (1) by death if the verdict of the jury shall so recommend, provided that the sentence of death shall not be imposed by the court if, prior to its imposition, the kidnaped person has been liberated unharmed, or (2) if the death penalty shall not apply nor be imposed the convicted person shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for such term of years as the court in its discretion shall determine. . . ."
In late 1931, the American public became seriously concerned about the mounting incidence of professional kidnaping and the apparent inability of state and local authorities to cope with the interstate aspects of the problem. See Fisher & McGuire, Kidnapping and the So-Called Lindbergh Law, 12 N.Y.U.L.Q.Rev. 646, 652-653 (1935). Because of its geographical position, the city of St. Louis "had experienced numerous kidnapings in which the handicap of state lines had hindered or defeated her police officers." Bomar, The Lindbergh Law, 1 Law & Contemp.Prob. 435 (1934). Largely in response to this experience, Senator Patterson and Congressman Cochran, both of Missouri, introduced identical bills (S. 1525, H.R. 5657) in the House and Senate, 75 Cong.Rec. 275, 491 (1931), forbidding the transportation in interstate or foreign commerce of any person "kidnaped . . . and held for ransom or reward, or . . . for any other unlawful purpose." Several months after the kidnaping of the Lindbergh baby in March, 1932, Congress enacted the first Federal Kidnaping Act, see n 29, supra, a slightly modified version of the bills introduced by Patterson and Cochran.
"[t]he advantage to the kidnapper in killing his victim is obvious and immediate, for the [Government's] best witness, perhaps its whole case, will be put out of the way. Thus, a sentence of life imprisonment instead of death may not suffice to induce a kidnapper to refrain from killing his victim, even if the kidnapper is aware of the mitigation provision -- itself a supposition not always true."
"[o]nce [an] injury has taken place, the inducement held out by the statute necessarily is either to hold the victim until cure is effected or to do away with him so that evidence, both of the injury and of the kidnapping, is destroyed."
Id. at 324 U. S. 289 (Rutledge, J., dissenting).
Congress was certainly aware when it passed the original Kidnaping Act of 1932 that "[t]he victim may be murdered or slain" if the kidnaper "has nothing to gain by [keeping] the victim . . . alive." 75 Cong.Rec. 13285 (1932). Such considerations might have been influential in the omission of any death penalty provision in 1932, see Robinson v. United States, 324 U. S. 282, 324 U. S. 289, n. 4 (Rutledge, J., dissenting), but not a single member of Congress even hinted that the anti-kidnaping law should be defeated altogether in the interest of the victim's safety. Given the law's fundamental objective of preventing interstate kidnaping in the first instance, any such suggestion would have been unthinkable.
burden impermissibly the right to a jury trial because it may either coerce or encourage persons to plead guilty or to waive a jury and be tried by the judge. In my view, however, if the vice of the provision is that it may interfere with the free choice of the defendant to have his guilt or innocence determined by a jury, the Court needlessly invalidates a major portion of an Act of Congress. The Court itself says that not every plea of guilty or waiver of jury trial would be influenced by the power of the jury to impose the death penalty. If this is so, I would not hold the provision unconstitutional, but would reverse the judgment, making it clear that pleas of guilty and waivers of jury trial should be carefully examined before they are accepted, in order to make sure that they have been neither coerced nor encouraged by the death penalty power in the jury.

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