Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/3d/6/628.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 13:00:57+00:00

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Neri Ramos and Jerome B. Falk, Jr., under appointments by the Supreme Court, and Anthony G. Amsterdam for Defendant and Appellant.
Ernest L. Graves, Renzi & Kilbride, Fred T. Kilbride, Gerald H. Gottlieb and Earl Klein as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Appellant.
Thomas C. Lynch and Evelle J. Younger, Attorneys General, Herbert L. Ashby, Chief Assistant Attorney General, William E. James, Assistant Attorney General, Thomas Kally and Ronald M. George, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
A second trial was had on the issue of the penalty for the murder, and the jury again imposed the death penalty. A motion for a new trial was denied, and this appeal is now before us automatically under subdivision (b) of Penal Code section 1239.
Before undertaking to examine the constitutionality of capital punishment in light of contemporary standards, it is instructive to note that article I, section 6, of the California Constitution, fn. 2 unlike the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, fn. 3 prohibits the infliction of cruel or unusual punishments. Thus, the California Constitution prohibits imposition of the death penalty if, judged by contemporary standards, it is either cruel or has become an unusual punishment.
Some commentators have suggested that the reach of the Eighth Amendment and that of article I, section 6, are coextensive, and that the use of the disjunctive form in the latter is insignificant. fn. 4 Our review of the history of the California provision persuades us, however, that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1849, who first adopted the section which was later incorporated into the Constitution of 1879, were aware of the significance of the disjunctive form and that its use was purposeful.
Article I, section 5, of the 1846 Constitution of New York, the first New York Constitution to include such a prohibition, proscribed cruel and unusual punishments. fn. 8 The 1846 Iowa Constitution, after which many of the sections of the proposed Declaration of Rights were patterned, also proscribed cruel and unusual punishments. fn. 9 Thus, it is apparent that the delegates did not make the change in order to correct a "verbal error" in transcribing the provision from the New York original, nor was it an attempt to conform it to the Iowa Constitution.
[2a] The same rules of construction require that wherever possible we construe constitutional provisions in such a way as to reconcile potential conflict among provisions and give effect to each. (People v. Western Air Lines, Inc. (1954) 42 Cal. 2d 621, 637 [268 P.2d 723].) It has been suggested that we are therefore restrained from considering whether capital punishment is proscribed by article I, section 6, since the death penalty is expressly or impliedly recognized in several other provisions of the California [6 Cal. 3d 638] Constitution. fn. 19 We perceive no possible conflict or repugnance between those provisions and the cruel or unusual punishment clause of article I, section 6, however, for none of the incidental references to the death penalty purport to give its existence constitutional stature. They do no more than recognize its existence at the time of their adoption. Thus, the bail clause of article I, section 6, restricts the right to bail in capital cases; the due process clause of article I, section 13, ensures that life will not be taken without due process; and section 8 of article I allows felony defendants represented by counsel to plead guilty at an arraignment before a magistrate only in noncapital cases. Similarly, section 8 of article V gives the Governor power to reprieve and section 11 of article VI vests this court with appellate jurisdiction in cases in which the death penalty has been imposed. None of these provisions can be construed as an affirmative exemption of capital punishment from the compass of the cruel or unusual punishment clause of article I, section 6.
The provisions of sections 6 and 13 of article I which recognize the existence of capital punishment were carried over into the Constitution of 1879 from the Constitution of 1849. Section 8 of article I was added in 1879 in a modification which discarded the former requirement that the prosecution in capital and other infamous crimes proceed by indictment and permitted instead the use of an information.
To interpret the adoption of Proposition 1-a or the presence in other provisions of the Constitution of references to capital punishment as intended to bar future judicial consideration of the possible cruel or unusual nature of capital punishment would violate the most elementary rules of constitutional construction.  "We do not ... approve of that principle of constitutional construction, which seeks by vague surmises, or even probable conjecture, or general speculation of a policy not distinctly expressed, to control the express language of the instrument; since such a mode would not unfrequently change the instrument from what its framers made it, into what the Judges think it should have been." (People v. Weller (1858) 11 Cal. 77, 86.) [2b] The Constitution expressly proscribes cruel or unusual punishments. It would be mere speculation and conjecture to ascribe to the framers an intent to exempt capital punishment from the compass of that provision solely because at a time when the death penalty was commonly accepted they provided elsewhere in the Constitution for special safeguards in its application.
Having determined that under the California Constitution capital punishment is prohibited if it is either a cruel or an unusual punishment, and that no constitutional impediment exists to restrain our examination of the death penalty in light of contemporary standards, we must also define the [6 Cal. 3d 640] role of the courts in giving effect to the cruel or unusual punishments clause of article I, section 6.
 Our duty to confront and resolve constitutional questions, regardless of their difficulty or magnitude, is at the very core of our judicial responsibility. It is a mandate of the most imperative nature. Called upon to decide whether the death penalty constitutes cruel or unusual punishment under the Constitution of this state, we face not merely a crucial and vexing issue but an awesome problem involving the lives of 104 persons under sentence of death in California, some for as long as 8 years. There can be no final disposition of the judicial proceedings in these cases unless and until this court has decided the state constitutional question, a question which cannot be avoided by deferring to any other court or to any other branch of government.
 The cruel or unusual punishment clause of the California Constitution, like other provisions of the Declaration of Rights, operates to restrain legislative and executive action and to protect fundamental individual and minority rights against encroachment by the majority. It is the function of the court to examine legislative acts in light of such constitutional mandates to ensure that the promise of the Declaration of Rights is a reality to the individual. (Bixby v. Pierno (1971) 4 Cal. 3d 130, 141 [93 Cal. Rptr. 234, 481 P.2d 242].) Were it otherwise, the Legislature would ever be the sole judge of the permissible means and extent of punishment and article I, section 6, of the Constitution would be superfluous.
Although we have often considered challenges to the constitutionality of capital punishment, we have heretofore approached the question in the Eighth Amendment context of "cruel and unusual" punishment, using that term interchangeably with the "cruel or unusual" language of article I, section 6, of the California Constitution, fn. 21 and have never independently tested the death penalty against the disjunctive requirements of the latter. As a consequence of this emphasis on the Eighth Amendment approach the majority of our prior opinions have focused on justifications for continuation of the death penalty which were then believed to exempt it from the federal constitutional prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment without regard to whether it was cruel. This disregard of the cruelty question is understandable when it is realized that at the time article I, section 6, was drafted in 1849, fn. 22 and when it was readopted in [6 Cal. 3d 642] 1879, fn. 23 capital punishment was not considered so cruel as to warrant proscription, and was a widely accepted, customary punishment in the fledgling state. Hanging had been a popular form of vigilante justice, fn. 24 and even after the new state instituted a judicial and penal system, public executions continued. fn. 25 Thus, at the time of our earliest decisions upholding capital punishment, a substantial proportion of California's residents had witnessed executions. It was not a remote or abstract concept, and the question as to whether capital punishment might violate standards of decency then accepted or shock the conscience of the people of that time did not often arise. When it did, the question could be summarily disposed of by a court which then understandably assumed that capital punishment was not so cruel as to be proscribed by the state or federal Constitutions. Since the cruelty of capital punishment was not then a substantial issue, any doubts as to the constitutionality of the death penalty were resolved by resorting to its continuing and usual acceptance. The emphasis of our prior opinions was thus placed on the common or usual rather than the "cruel" aspect of the punishment.
One J. W. Finley appears to have been the first defendant to challenge the death penalty in California on grounds that it violated article I, section 6, of the California Constitution. A life prisoner at Folsom, he had committed a malicious assault on another prisoner, an offense punishable by death. While awaiting trial he challenged the then applicable Penal Code section (Pen. Code, § 246; now Pen. Code, § 4500) on constitutional grounds. The Court of Appeal rejected his challenge, answering its own question "Is the punishment cruel or unusual," by justifying it as among the [6 Cal. 3d 643] "severe penalties ... necessary to deter men from defying law and daring the consequences." (In re Finley (1905) 1 Cal. App. 198, 201 [81 P. 1041].) The Finley court adopted an "excessive" or "disproportionate" test by which to judge whether a punishment was "unusual" and concluded that "only when the punishment is out of all proportion to the offense, and is beyond question an extraordinary penalty for a crime of ordinary gravity committed under ordinary circumstances, that courts may denounce it as unusual." (1 Cal. App. 198, 202; italics in original.) The court, perhaps mindful of our decision in Ex Parte Mitchell, supra, 70 Cal. 1, in which we had used the disjunctive language of article I, section 6, did purport to separately consider whether the penalty was "cruel," but instead of examining that question independently, assumed that the death penalty could not be "cruel per se, for the whole current of law for centuries justifies the infliction." (Ibid.) Thus, California adopted the cruel and unusual punishment approach, which has been followed by the United States Supreme Court, of finding justification for capital punishment in its deterrent effect, and weighing only whether it was an excessive or unusual punishment, without independent consideration of whether it is cruel.
Although Finley did not directly challenge the death penalty in this court on cruel and unusual punishment grounds, the approaches to its constitutionality taken by the Court of Appeal in the first Finley case and by this court in the second Finley case became firmly established in California law in 1909 when we rejected a second challenge to the infliction of the death penalty for aggravated assault by a life prisoner. Jacob Oppenheimer, a life prisoner at San Quentin, undeterred by the existence of the penalty, assaulted another prisoner in the prison dining room with a knife. He was convicted, the death penalty was imposed, and, on appeal to this court, he contended that then section 246 of the Penal Code was unconstitutional. Citing our prior Finley opinion, we noted that the validity of the section had been upheld against an equal protection [6 Cal. 3d 644] challenge. But Oppenheimer had also claimed that the death penalty constituted cruel or unusual punishment. Although we recognized that " 'cruel' or 'unusual' " punishments were barred by section 6 of article I of the California Constitution, we did not examine the possibility that capital punishment might be cruel. Instead we declared: "The infliction of the death penalty by any of the methods ordinarily adopted by civilized people, such as hanging, shooting, or electricity, is neither a cruel nor unusual punishment (see In re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 447 ...) unless perhaps it be so disproportionate to the offense for which it is inflicted as to meet the disapproval and condemnation of the conscience and reason of men generally, 'as to shock the moral sense of the people.' [Citation.] In view of what is said in People v. Finley, as to the reasons for such provision ..., we are of the opinion that no such conclusion can be reached in regard to the statute under consideration." (People v. Oppenheimer (1909) 156 Cal. 733, 737-738 [106 P. 74].) By adopting what had originally been the basis for rejecting an equal protection challenge to the death penalty, we established justification, proportionment to the offense, and common practice among civilized peoples, as the tests by which to measure capital punishment against constitutional challenge, notwithstanding the alternative criteria of cruel or unusual punishments established by section 6, article I, of the California Constitution. Since the death penalty furthered a permissible purpose of punishment, was commonly practiced among civilized people, and was not disproportionate to the offense, it did not offend the Constitution.
Now, however, as the California constitutional history demonstrates, we must probe the issue on the basis of the disjunctive cruel or unusual punishment.
The Constitutionality of Capital Punishment Today.
Well over a century has now passed since the day when vigilante justice and public hangings made executions an accepted practice of California life. We cannot today assume, as it was assumed in early opinions of this court, that capital punishment is not so cruel as to offend contemporary standards of decency. Appellant has asked that we not only reexamine the validity of the prior bases upon which the death penalty has been upheld, but that we independently examine its cruelty applying contemporary standards. As we shall discuss at greater length below, we have done so and have concluded that capital punishment is "cruel" as that term is understood in its constitutional sense. We have also, at the instance of both appellant and respondent, reexamined the bases upon which capital punishment has been upheld heretofore. As will appear, we have concluded that the death penalty cannot be justified as furthering any of the accepted purposes of punishment. Moreover, we have concluded that it can no longer escape characterization as an "unusual" punishment.
 We do not interpret the constitutional prohibition of cruel or unusual punishments either as a license for the indefinite continuance of all punishments known to the common law or practiced at the time California attained statehood, nor as a proscription of innovative types of punishment whose purpose is the rehabilitation or reformation of criminal offenders. Historical analysis suggests that the framers intended to outlaw both cruel punishments and punishments of excessive severity for ordinary offenses. They used the term cruel in its ordinary meaning--causing physical pain or mental anguish of an inhumane or torturous nature.
What our society does in actuality belies what it says with regard to its acceptance of capital punishment. Between 1930 and 1968, a total of 3,859 persons were executed in the United States as punishment for crimes ranging from murder to burglary and aggravated assault. fn. 34 The steady decrease in the number of executions from a high of 199 in 1935 to 2 in 1967, fn. 35 in spite of a growing population and notwithstanding the statutory sanction of the death penalty, persuasively demonstrates that capital punishment is unacceptable to society today.
The cruelty of capital punishment lies not only in the execution itself and the pain incident thereto, fn. 36 but also in the dehumanizing effects of the lengthy imprisonment prior to execution during which the judicial and administrative procedures essential to due process of law are carried out. fn. 37 Penologists and medical experts agree that the process of carrying out a verdict of death is often so degrading and brutalizing to the human spirit as to constitute psychological torture. fn. 38 Respondent concedes the fact of [6 Cal. 3d 650] lengthy delays between the pronouncement of the judgment of death and the actual execution, but suggests that these delays are acceptable because they often occur at the instance of the condemned prisoner. We reject this suggestion. An appellant's insistence on receiving the benefits of appellate review of the judgment condemning him to death does not render the lengthy period of impending execution any less torturous or exempt such cruelty from constitutional proscription.
The brutalizing psychological effects of impending execution are a relevant consideration in our assessment of the cruelty of capital punishment. The United States Supreme Court recognized in Weems v. United States, supra, 217 U.S. 349 at page 372 [54 L. Ed. 793 at pp. 800-801], that "it must have come to [the framers of the Eighth Amendment] that there could be exercises of cruelty by laws other than those which inflicted bodily pain or mutilation." In Trop v. Dulles, supra, 356 U.S. 86, in which the United States Supreme Court squarely held a criminal punishment to be violative of the Eighth Amendment, the psychological impact of the punishment was dispositive. The court there held that denationalization as punishment was barred by the Eighth Amendment, stating in the plurality opinion: "There may be involved no physical mistreatment, no primitive torture. There is instead the total destruction of the individual's status in organized society. It is a form of punishment more primitive than torture, for it destroys for the individual the political existence that was centuries in the development. The punishment strips the citizen of his status in the national and international political community. His very existence is at the sufferance of the country in which he happens to find himself. ... In short, the expatriate has lost the right to have rights.
Although the court suggested in dictum that it believed the death penalty to be permissible then in certain circumstances, it also emphasized that: "The basic concept underlying the Eighth Amendment is nothing less than the dignity of man." (Id. at p. 100 [2 L.Ed.2d at p. 642].) The dignity of man, the individual and the society as a whole, is today demeaned by our continued practice of capital punishment. Judged by contemporary standards of decency, capital punishment is impermissibly cruel. It is being increasingly rejected by society and is now almost wholly repudiated [6 Cal. 3d 651] by those most familiar with its processes. Measured by the "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society," capital punishment is, therefore, cruel within the meaning of article I, section 6, of the California Constitution.
 The People concede that capital punishment is cruel to the individual involved. They argue, however, that only "unnecessary" cruelty is constitutionally proscribed, and that if a cruel punishment can be justified it is not forbidden by article I, section 6, of the California Constitution. We need not decide here whether our Constitution permits the infliction of "necessary" cruelty as punishment for crime, because respondent has not demonstrated that the death penalty can be justified as necessary to any state interest.
In seeking to justify continuance of capital punishment, the People argue that it furthers three of the four acknowledged purposes of punishment. Respondent concedes that death is in no way rehabilitative, but contends that capital punishment may be legitimately imposed in retribution for serious offenses, that it serves to isolate the offender, and that the existence of the death penalty acts as a deterrent to crime. None of these purposes is shown to justify so onerous a penalty as death.
 Although vengence or retribution has been acknowledged as a permissible purpose of punishment under the Eighth Amendment (Williams v. New York (1949) 337 U.S. 241, 248 [93 L. Ed. 1337, 1343, 69 S.Ct. 1079]), we do not sanction punishment solely for retribution in California. (In re Estrada (1965) 63 Cal. 2d 740, 745 [48 Cal. Rptr. 172, 408 P.2d 948].) We are fully aware that many condemned prisoners have committed crimes of the utmost cruelty and depravity and that such persons are not entitled to the slightest sympathy from society in the administration of justice or otherwise. Nevertheless, it is incompatible with the dignity of an enlightened society to attempt to justify the taking of life for purposes of vengeance.
 Admittedly, isolation of the offender from society is a proper and often necessary goal of punishment and death does effectively serve that purpose. Society can be protected from convicted criminals, however, by far less onerous means than execution. In no sense can capital punishment be justified as "necessary" to isolate the offender from society.
 Respondent contends that the existence of the death penalty may [6 Cal. 3d 652] deter some persons from committing capital offenses. We have recognized that whether a substantial deterrent effect can be proven is a vigorously disputed proposition. (People v. Love (1961) 56 Cal. 2d 720, 731 [16 Cal. Rptr. 777, 17 Cal. Rptr. 481, 366 P.2d 33, 809]; People v. Ketchel (1963) 59 Cal. 2d 503, 538-539 [30 Cal. Rptr. 538, 381 P.2d 394].) fn. 39 We are aware of the obvious imponderable and variable characteristics of society which can cause statistical studies of deterrence to be misleading, and of the difficulties inherent in attempting to establish that an offense was not committed because a would-be offender was aware of and restrained by the possibility of the death penalty. Nonetheless, as respondent concedes, many homicides in particular are not deterrable and as to the remainder capital punishment can have a significant deterrent effect only if the punishment is swiftly and certainly exacted. We have already demonstrated that the punishment is not swift. Moreover, it is far from certain.
In California death is authorized as the penalty for eight offenses: treason (Pen. Code, § 37), perjury in capital cases (Pen. Code, § 128), first degree murder (Pen. Code, § 190), kidnaping for ransom or robbery with bodily harm to the victim (Pen. Code, § 209), train wrecking (Pen. Code, § 219), malicious assault by life prisoner (Pen. Code, § 4500), explosion of destructive devices causing great bodily injury (Pen. Code, § 12310), and sabotage resulting in death or great bodily injury (Mil. & Vet. Code, § 1672, subd. (a)). The penalty is mandatory for the treason and perjury offenses and for malicious assault by a life prisoner if a non-inmate victim dies. It is discretionary for the other listed offenses.
Notwithstanding the discretion given to judges and juries to impose either death or life imprisonment for first degree murder, fn. 40 it is estimated that in [6 Cal. 3d 653] California 80 percent of those persons convicted receive a sentence of life imprisonment. fn. 41 Of the 20 percent upon whom a sentence of death is imposed, commutation of sentence, reversal of the judgment, and other factors fn. 42 further reduce the number of defendants actually executed to the point where, far from being a certain penalty with acknowledged deterrent effect, capital punishment today is rarely imposed or implemented.
A punishment as extreme and as irrevocable as death cannot be predicated upon speculation as to what the deterrent effect might be if it were actually applied swiftly and with certainty upon all who were potentially subject to it. As stated previously, in reality today it is neither swift nor certain. Respondent offers us no basis upon which to conclude that, as presently administered, capital punishment is any greater deterrent to crime than are other available forms of punishment.
 We have already noted that the death sentence is rarely imposed in California today and that it is even more rarely carried out. But even adopting the broader test of widespread acceptance among civilized peoples, capital punishment can no longer withstand constitutional proscription. Respondent seeks to avoid this conclusion by suggesting that a punishment is not unusual in the constitutional sense unless it is unusual as to form, or method by which it is imposed. We cannot accept this limitation of the meaning of "unusual," however, for to do so would ignore the fact that execution is a form or method of punishment and would embroil us in future [6 Cal. 3d 654] semantic disputes as to whether innovative types of punishment were unconstitutionally "unusual" forms of punishment.
In construing article I, section 6, we have held than an excessive or disproportionate punishment is "unusual." (People v. Oppenheimer, supra, 156 Cal. 733, 737-738.) When a punishment has been challenged as being unconstitutionally "cruel," however, the fact that it was not literally "unusual" has been considered relevant, not to whether the punishment should be proscribed as excessive, but as to whether it was offensive to the standards of decency common to civilized peoples. (In re Finley, supra, 1 Cal. App. 198, 202.) Thus, when doubt existed as to whether a punishment was so cruel as to contravene article I, section 6, that doubt could be resolved in favor of upholding the punishment if it was commonly accepted among civilized societies not limited to our own.
We have concluded that capital punishment is unconstitutionally cruel and that under article I, section 6, a cruel punishment is proscribed irrespective of whether it is excessive. If any doubt remained as to its cruelty, however, we could no longer uphold capital punishment on the ground that it is commonly accepted, for the repudiation of the death penalty in this country is reflected in a world-wide trend towards abolition.
No longer can it be said that capital punishment is not "cruel per se, for the whole current of law for centuries justifies its infliction." (In re Finley, supra, 1 Cal. App. 198, 202.) Although world-wide acceptance of capital punishment at the turn of the century may then have warranted resolving doubts as to its cruelty in favor of its constitutionality, the current has now reversed. It is now, literally, an unusual punishment among civilized nations.
 Insofar as Penal Code sections 190 and 190.1 purport to authorize [6 Cal. 3d 657] the imposition of the death penalty, they are, accordingly, unconstitutional. In view of our decision that the death penalty may not be carried out, it is unnecessary to reach petitioner's other contentions relating to the validity of the penalty judgment.
First: The question here involved is now pending before the Supreme Court of the United States, whose decision will be binding upon this court. Therefore, I would not pass upon the merits of the contentions discussed in the foregoing opinion until the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States has been rendered.
FN 4. Comment, The Death Penalty Cases (1968) 56 Cal.L.Rev. 1268, 1326, footnote 502. But see, Mosk, The Eighth Amendment Rediscovered (1968) 1 Loyola L.A.L.Rev. 4, 17-18.
FN 5. Browne, Debates in the Convention of California (1850) page 30 (hereinafter "1849 Debates").
FN 6. Id page 31.
FN 7. Id page 458.
FN 8. 5 Thorpe, American Charters, Constitutions, and Organic Laws (1909) page 2654 (hereinafter "Thorpe").
FN 9. 2 Thorpe, page 1125.
FN 11. Id page 221.
FN 12. Id pages 37, 56, 69, 110, 380, 384.
FN 13. E.g., Pennsylvania Constitution of 1838, article IX, section 13 (5 Thorpe, p. 3114); Alabama Constitution of 1819, article I, section 16 (1 Thorpe, p. 98); Delaware Constitution of 1831, article I, section 11 (1 Thorpe, p. 583); Kentucky Constitution of 1799, article X, section 15 (3 Thorpe, p. 1290); Mississippi Constitution of 1832, article I, section 16 (4 Thorpe, p. 2050); Rhode Island Constitution of 1842, article I, section 8 (6 Thorpe, p. 3223); South Carolina Constitution of 1790, article IX, section 4 (6 Thorpe, p. 3264).
FN 14. E.g., North Carolina Constitution of 1776, paragraph X (5 Thorpe, p. 2788); Florida Constitution of 1838, article I, section 12 (2 Thorpe, p. 665); Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, article XXVII of Declaration of Rights (3 Thorpe, p. 1892); New Hampshire Constitution of 1792, Part First, article XXIII (4 Thorpe, p. 2474).
FN 15. E.g., Arkansas Constitution of 1836, article II, section 13: "That all penalties shall be reasonable and proportioned to the nature of the offense." (1 Thorpe, p. 270); Illinois Constitution of 1848, article XIII, section 14: "All penalties shall be proportioned to the nature of the offense; the true design of all punishment being to reform, not to exterminate mankind." (2 Thorpe, p. 1008); New Hampshire Constitution of 1792, Part First, article XVIII (4 Thorpe, p. 2473).
FN 16. E.g., Indiana Constitution of 1816, article I, section 15 (cruel and unusual punishment) and section 16 ("All penalties shall be proportioned to the nature of the offense") (2 Thorpe, p. 1059); Maine Constitution of 1819, article I, section 9 ("shall be proportioned to the offense ... nor cruel nor unusual punishments inflicted") (3 Thorpe, pp. 1647-1648); Rhode Island Constitution of 1842, article I, section 8 ("nor cruel punishments inflicted" and "all punishments ought to be proportioned to the offense") (6 Thorpe, p. 3223).
One delegate, noting that whipping was permitted in Delaware, and possibly in Kentucky and Virginia, suggested that their constitutions were substantially similar, and if the reason it was permitted there but had been declared unconstitutional by one California appellate court was that California's Constitution included the word "unusual," "then it is a sufficient answer to say that if it is to become fashionable, let it become fashionable elsewhere first, and the objection that it is unusual will cease to apply to our Courts." (1879 Debates, p. 246.) At the time the Kentucky and Delaware Constitutions prohibited only "cruel" punishments, although the Virginia Constitution prohibited "cruel and unusual" punishments. It is apparent that the delegates recognized the distinctions between the constitutions and considered the terms of the California Constitution to be disjunctive.
FN 19. Article I, section 6: "All persons shall be bailable by sufficient sureties, unless for capital offenses ..."; article I, section 8: "... If the felony charged is not punishable with death, the magistrate shall immediately upon the appearance of counsel for the defendant read the complaint to the defendant and ask him whether he pleads guilty or not guilty to the offense charged therein [and] the defendant may ... plead guilty to the offense ..."; article I, section 13: "... No person shall ... be deprived of life ... without due process of law; ..."; article V, section 8: "... the Governor, on conditions he deems proper, may grant a reprieve, ..."; article VI, section 11: "The Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction when judgment of death has been pronounced."
FN 22. On September 11, 1849, L. W. Hastings, an attorney delegate from the Sacramento District, introduced the following resolution: "As the true design of all punishment is to reform and not to exterminate mankind, death shall never be inflicted as a punishment for crime in this state."
Mr. Blackmer, of San Diego County, questioned: "It is stated here that we have a right to take life under the law, and it is admitted on all hands that it is a cruel punishment. I want to ask the gentleman if it deters from the crime of murder. Does the fact that we have the right, and that that law is carried out in many instances, deter people from committing that crime of murder? Not at all." (Id p. 245.) Not all delegates agreed, however, that the death penalty was cruel.
FN 24. 3 Hittell, supra, pages 274, 277-278.
FN 26. See footnotes 17 and 18, supra.
FN 27. 1 Schwartz, The Bill of Rights: A Documentary History (1971) 41-43 (hereinafter "Schwartz").
FN 28. Granucci, "Nor Cruel and Unusual Punishments Inflicted:" The Original Meaning (1969) 57 Cal.L.Rev. 839.
FN 29. Patrick Henry in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788, in 2 Schwartz, supra, at page 799. "What has distinguished our ancestors?--That they would not admit of tortures, or cruel and barbarous punishment. But Congress may introduce the practice of the civil law, in preference to that of the common law. They may introduce the practice of ... torturing, to extort a confession of the crime. ... We are then lost and undone."
FN 30. Massachusetts Convention Debates, 1788, in 2 Schwartz, supra, at pages 690-691. "They are nowhere restrained from inventing the most cruel and unheard-of punishments, and annexing them to crimes; and there is no constitutional check on them, but that racks and gibbets may be amongst the most mild instruments of their discipline."
FN 31. 2 Schwartz, supra, pages 1053, 1112.
FN 32. See footnote 18, supra.
FN 33. Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, West Virginia, and Wisconsin have abolished capital punishment. United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Prisons, National Prisoner Statistics, Bulletin No. 45 (August 1969) Capital Punishment 1930-1968 page 30 (hereinafter "NPS Bulletin No. 45").
FN 34. NPS Bulletin No. 45, supra, page 7.
FN 36. See, Comment, The Death Penalty Cases, 56 Cal.L.Rev. 1268, 1341, supra; Hearings on Senate Bill 1760 Before the Subcommittee on Criminal Laws and Procedures of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on March 20, 21 and July 2, 1968 (Published by G.P.O. 1970) page 21.
FN 37. The median elapsed time prisoners now awaiting execution in California had been imprisoned as of the end of 1968 was 20.7 months. The national median elapsed time was then 33.3 months. The California figures do not take into account prisoners who were awaiting execution at that time but who have since had their sentences commuted, judgments reversed, or have been removed from death row for other reasons. As of December 31, 1968, the median elapsed time condemned prisoners then on death row had been awaiting execution was 23.7 months. (NPS Bulletin No. 45, supra, p. 27.) There were a total of 104 persons under sentence of death in California as of December 31, 1971. Of these, two prisoners have been on death row since 1964, five since 1965, and seven since 1966. Eight were received there in 1967, fifteen in 1968, and thirteen in 1969. Thirty-four were received in 1970 and the remaining twenty in 1971.
FN 38. See e.g., Hearings on Senate Bill 1, before the California Senate Committee on the Judiciary (1960) page 9 (1 Sen. J. Appendix (1961)); Hearings on Senate Bill 1760 Before the Subcommittee on Criminal Laws and Procedures of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on March 20, 21 and July 2, 1968 (Published by G.P.O. 1760 Before the Subcommittee on Criminal Laws and Procedures of the Senate Comzine (No. 2) 84.
FN 39. See, e.g., European Commission on Crime Problems, Council of Europe, The Death Penalty in European Countries (1962) pages 45-46; Massachusetts Special Commission Established for the Purpose of Investigating and Studying the Abolition of the Death Penalty in Capital Cases, House Report No. 2575 (1958) at page 44; Ohio Legislative Service Commission, Capital Punishment, Staff Report No. 46 (1961) at pages 43-47; Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, Report (1953) paragraph 65, at page 23; Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee on Capital Punishment, Problems of the Death Penalty and its Administration in California, 20 Assembly Interim Committee Report No. 3 (1955-1957) at pages 27-30; Bedau, The Question of Deterrence, in The Death Penalty in America 264-265 (H. Bedau ed. 1964 [hereinafter "Bedau"]); Graves, The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment in California, in Bedau, supra, at page 322; Savitz, The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment in Philadelphia, in Bedau, supra, at page 315; Schuessler, The Deterrent Influence of the Death Penalty (1952) 284 Annals 54, 62; Sellin, Homicides in Retentionist and Abolitionist States, in Capital Punishment 135 (T. Sellin ed. 1967 [hereinafter "Sellin"]).
FN 41. McGee, Capital Punishment as Seen by a Correctional Administrator (1964) 28 Fed. Prob. (No. 2) 11, 12. In 1967 there were 88 first degree murder convictions in California and 17 death sentences. (Crime & Delinquency in Cal. 1967 (Bureau of Crim. Statistics Rep. 1968) p. 140; NPS Bulletin No. 42 (1968).) During 1969 there were 87 first degree murder convictions and 8 death sentences. (Crime & Delinquency in Cal. 1969 (Bureau of Crim. Statistics Rep. 1970) p. 121.) The ratio of death sentences to first degree murder convictions does not adequately reflect the uncertainty of imposition of capital punishment, however. This uncertainty is better exemplified by the rarity of the death sentence in California in relation to the total number of wilful homicides. In 1969 California experienced a record 1,376 wilful homicides. (Crime and Delinquency in Cal. 1970 (Bureau of Crim. Statistics Rep. 1971) p. 5.) In 1970 there were 1,359 wilful homicides. (Ibid.) There were 1,790 arrests in 1969 and 1,807 arrests in 1970 for all categories of homicide. (Crime & Delinquency in Cal. -- Crime and Arrests 1970 (Reference Tables, Bureau of Crim. Statistics 1971) p. 5.) Yet, in all of 1969, 1970 and 1971 a total of only 67 persons were sentenced to death.
FN 42. Death from natural causes, suicide, and insanity (Pen. Code, § 3704). During the period 1965-1971, 60 percent or 66 death penalty appeals resulted in reversals of the entire judgment or of the penalty. In addition, 19 extraordinary writs were granted setting aside the penalty or the entire conviction and requiring new trials or further proceedings for each defendant.
FN 43. NPS Bulletin No. 45, supra, pages 8-9.
FN 44. Sources for this table are: United Nations, Secretary-General's Note, supra; Ancel, The Death Penalty in European Countries (Council of Europe, European Committee on Crime Problems 1962); Joyce, Capital Punishment: A World View (1961); University of Coimbra, Faculty of Law, Pena do Morte (1967); Patrick, The Status of Capital Punishment: A World Perspective (1965) 56 J. Crim. L.C. & P.S. 397, 405. Included among the abolitionist jurisdictions are nine which retained capital punishment for certain extraordinary civil offenses (Canada, Israel, Nepal, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the Australian jurisdictions); eight which permit it under military law or in wartime (Brazil, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland), of which two executed Nazi collaborators after the Second World War (Netherlands and Norway). Belgium executed one soldier in 1918.
The dates shown are those of de jure abolition except for Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Nicaragua, and Surinam, in which the date represents that of the last execution and the beginning of de facto abolition, with the exception of Luxembourg which had one later execution.
The Canadian statute abolishing capital punishment for murder expires five years from the date of its enactment if not renewed.
FN 45. Inasmuch as today's decision is fully retroactive, any prisoner now under a sentence of death, the judgment as to which is final, may file a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the superior court inviting that court to modify its judgment to provide for the appropriate alternative punishment of life imprisonment or life imprisonment without possibility of parole specified by statute for the crime for which he was sentenced to death. Petitions should be filed in the court of territorial jurisdiction in the first instance and transferred by that court to the sentencing court in the event the court with territorial jurisdiction was not the sentencing court.
The issue of the right to bail in cases in which the law has heretofore provided for the death penalty has been raised for the first time by the People and amici curiae on petition for rehearing. Although this question was never an issue in this case, we deem it appropriate to note that article I, section 6, of the California Constitution and section 1270 of the Penal Code, dealing with the subject of bail, refer to a category of offenses for which the punishment of death could be imposed and bail should be denied under certain circumstances. The law thus determined the gravity of such offenses both for the purpose of fixing bail before trial and for imposing punishment after conviction. Those offenses, of course, remain the same but under the decision in this case punishment by death cannot constitutionally be exacted. The underlying gravity of those offenses endures and the determination of their gravity for the purpose of bail continues unaffected by this decision. Accordingly, to subserve such purpose and subject to our future consideration of this issue in an appropriate proceeding, we hold that they remain as offenses for which bail should be denied in conformity with article I, section 6, of the Constitution and Penal Code section 1270 when the proof of guilt is evident or the presumption thereof great.
FN 1. In my opinion, the fact that for thousands of years death has been accepted as a proper punishment for the most serious criminal offenses indicates that it is neither a cruel punishment (when effected by means such as those used in this state) nor an unusual punishment.
In the Holy Bible, it is stated: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man." (Genesis, ch. 9, v. 6.) The foregoing quotation shows that the death penalty has long been regarded by us and our predecessors as an appropriate punishment for a person who commits murder.
FN 3. As aptly pointed out by Professor Zoll in the conclusion of his article: "Capital punishment ought not to be abolished solely because it is substantially repulsive, if infinitely less repulsive than the acts which invoke it. Yet the mounting zeal for its abolition seems to arise from a sentimentalized hyperfastidiousness that seeks to expunge from the society all that appears harsh and suppressive. If we are to preserve the humane society we will have to retain sufficient strength of character and will to do the unpleasant in order that tranquility and civility may rule comprehensively. It seems very likely that capital punishment is a ... necessary, if limited, factor in that maintenance of social tranquility and ought to be retained on this groundTo do otherwise is to indulge in the luxury of permitting a sense of false delicacy to reign over the necessity of social survival."

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