Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/333/740/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-12-07 07:15:53
Document Index: 372951575

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 567', '§ 567', '§ 567', '§ 567', '§ 567', '§ 275', '§ 454', '§ 330']

ANDRES V. UNITED STATES, 333 U. S. 740 - Volume 333 - 1948 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
US Supreme Court Center > Volume 333 > ANDRES V. UNITED STATES, 333 U. S. 740 (1948) > Full Text
172 U.S. at 172 U. S. 306. This Court held that instruction erroneous. The Court read the
statute to place the question whether the accused should or should not be capitally punished entirely within the discretion of the jury; an exercise of that discretion could be based upon any consideration which appealed to the jury. [Footnote 3] In the case now before us, the trial judge gave the instructions set forth in the margin. [Footnote 4] It is clear that he
It is next contended that the trial was unfair because the instructions quoted below [Footnote 5] indicated to the jury that the indictment against the petitioner reflected a finding by the Grand Jury that he was probably guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree. Perhaps the italicized language in the charge, read out of context, is misleading
The petitioner contends that the phrase "laws of the State" limits the statute to the forty-eight states and, consequently, provides for no method of inflicting the death penalty where that sentence is imposed by a district court sitting in a Territory. [Footnote 6] We reject that contention as being without merit. In many contexts, "state" may mean only the several states of the United States. Here, however, we hold that its meaning includes the Territory of Hawaii.
If a qualified verdict is not returned, the death penalty is mandatory. [Footnote 7] The Government argues that § 567, properly construed, requires that the jury first unanimously decide the guilt of the accused, and then, with the same unanimity, decide whether a qualified verdict shall be returned. As the statute requires the death penalty on a verdict of guilty, the contention is that the jury acts unanimously in finding guilt, and the law exacts the penalty. It follows that, if all twelve of the jurors cannot agree to add the words "without capital punishment," the original verdict of guilt stands, and the punishment of death must be imposed. The petitioner contends that § 567 must be construed to require unanimity in respect to both guilt and punishment before a verdict can be returned. It follows that one juror can prevent a verdict which requires the death penalty, although there is unanimity in finding the accused guilty of murder in the first degree. The Circuit Court of Appeals held that unanimity of the jury was required both as to guilt
The reports of the Congressional Committees and the debates on the floor of Congress do not discuss the particular problem with which we are now concerned. [Footnote 11]
Unanimity in jury verdicts is required where the Sixth and Seventh Amendments apply. [Footnote 13] In criminal cases, this requirement of unanimity extends to all issues -- character or degree of the crime, guilt and punishment -- which are left to the jury. A verdict embodies in a single finding the conclusions by the jury upon all the questions submitted to it. We do not think that the grant of authority to the jury by § 567 to qualify their verdict permits a procedure whereby a unanimous jury must first find guilt and then a unanimous jury alleviate its rigor. Therefore, although the interpretation of § 567 urged by the Government cannot be proven erroneous with certainty, since the statute contains no language specifically requiring unanimity
The Government concedes that, if the petitioner's interpretation of § 567 is accepted, these instructions were inadequate, and we find ourselves in agreement with this concession. The court below concluded that the instructions were proper, and that they did not mislead the jury. [Footnote 15] It based its conclusion upon two factors: (1) the common understanding of jurors that "they are under no legal compulsion to join in a verdict with which they are in disagreement, either in whole or in part . . . ," [Footnote 16] and (2) the general admonition of the trial judge that "the unanimous agreement of the jury is necessary to a verdict." [Footnote 17]
This case affords a striking illustration of the task cast upon courts when legislation is more ambiguous than the limits of reasonable foresight in draftsmanship justify. It also proves that, when the legislative will is clouded,
A legislature which seeks to retain capital punishment as a policy but does not make its imposition after a finding
(4) The jury may be authorized to qualify the traditional verdict of guilty so as to enable the court to impose a sentence other than death. This may be accomplished by giving such discretionary power to the court simpliciter, or upon recommendation of mercy by the jury.
The fair spontaneous reading of this provision, in connection with § 275 of the Criminal Code -- "Every person guilty of murder in the first degree shall suffer death." 35 Stat. 1143, 18 U.S.C. § 454 -- would be that Congress has continued capital punishment as its policy; that one found guilty of murder in the first degree must suffer death if the jury reaches such a verdict, but that "the jury may qualify their verdict by adding thereto without capital punishment;'" that, since federal jury action requires unanimity, when unanimity is not attained by the jury in order to "qualify their verdict" by "adding" the phrase of alleviation, the verdict of murder in the first degree already reached must stand. Certainly, if construction called for no more than reading the legislation of Congress as written by Congress, to interpret it as just indicated would not be blindly literal reading of legislation in defiance of the injunction that the letter killeth. On the contrary, it would heed the dominant policy of Congress that "every person guilty of murder in the first degree shall suffer death" unless the jury "qualify their verdict by adding thereto" the terms of remission.
Moreover, we are dealing with a field much closer to the experience of the State courts, as the guardians of those deep interests of society which are reflected in legislation dealing with the punishment for murder and which are predominantly the concern of the States. [Footnote 2/2] If the
A. In only four States is death the inevitable penalty for murder in the first degree: Connecticut, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Vermont. Such has been, until the other day, the law of England despite persistent and impressive efforts to modify it. See, e.g., Minutes of Evidence and Report of the Select Committee on Capital Punishment (1930). It is worthy of note that this effort has just prevailed by the passage, on a free vote, of a provision abolishing the death penalty for an experimental period of five years. See 449 H.C.Deb. (Hansard) cls. 981 et seq. (April 14, 1948), and statement of the Home Secretary that death sentences will be suspended on the basis of this vote, even before the measure
VI. Two States frankly recognize that differences of opinion are likely to occur when the jury has power to mitigate the death sentence, and provide for life imprisonment even when the jury is not unanimous: Florida and Mississippi.
Of the nine States that have enacted legislation more or less like the federal provision under consideration, the statutes of four -- Louisiana, Maryland, West Virginia, and Wyoming -- are virtually in the identical form. While the highest courts of these States have not passed upon the precise question before us, they have all construed their respective statutes as giving the jury a free choice as to which of the two alternative punishments are to be imposed, although it can fairly be said that such construction runs counter to the obvious reading that the sentence is death unless all of the jurors are agreed as to adding "without capital punishment." [Footnote 2/3] Three of the nine
States -- Ohio, Oregon, and South Carolina -- have statutes providing that the penalty is death unless the jury recommends "mercy" or "life imprisonment" in which case the punishment shall be life imprisonment. These have all been construed as providing for alternative punishment in the discretion of the jury. [Footnote 2/4] While a similar New Jersey statute has been given the literal construction here
Winston v. United States, supra, at 172 U. S. 313. The fair significance to be drawn from State legislation and the practical construction given to it is that it places into the jury's hands the determination whether the sentence is to be death or life imprisonment, [Footnote 2/6] and, since that is the jury's responsibility, it is for them to decide whether death should or should not be the consequence of their finding that the accused is guilty of murder in the first degree. Since the determination of the sentence is thus, in effect, a part of their verdict, there must be accord by the entire jury in reaching the full content of the verdict.
The Government contends that, because of its "clear terms," little weight should be accorded the failure of Congress to repudiate the interpretation placed upon § 330 of the Criminal Code by the Smith case in 1931. That decision and acquiescence in it answer the claim that the section precludes a reading of it opposed to that which the Government offers. Moreover, it is significant that the proposed revision of the Criminal Code [Footnote 2/7] leaves the form of this provision unchanged. This revision doubtless had the expert scrutiny of the Department of Justice, [Footnote 2/8] and that Department must have had knowledge of the judicial gloss put upon the retained provision by the Smith case. [Footnote 2/9]
The care that trial judges should exercise in making clear to juries their power and responsibility in trials for murder is emphasized by the uncertainties regarding the construction appropriate to the jury's power to affect the punishment on a finding of guilt of murder in the first degree, now resolved by this decision. It fell upon the trial judge here to instruct the jury as to this power. Was his charge in accord with the statute as construed by us? The court below held that it was; the Government concedes that it was not. The charge and the instructions given were such as to permit reasonable minds to differ on this issue, and therein lies the error. [Footnote 2/10] Charging a jury is not a matter of abracadabra. No part of the conduct of a criminal trial lays a heavier task upon the presiding judge. The charge is that part of the whole trial which probably exercises the weightiest influence upon jurors. It should guide their understanding after