Source: https://casetext.com/case/ex-parte-farley-4
Timestamp: 2019-09-15 14:39:37
Document Index: 151881197

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 26', '§ 110', '§ 110', '§ 115', '§ 111', '§ 201']

Ex Parte Farley, 570 S.W.2d 617 | Casetext
570 S.W.2d 617 (Ky. 1978)
Supreme Court of KentuckyJul 25, 1978
Jack Emory Farley, Public Advocate, Kevin Michael McNally, Erwin W. Lewis, Asst. Public Defenders, Frankfort, for petitioners.
This proceeding began in the form of a "Complaint for Declaration of Rights" filed by the petitioners in the Franklin Circuit Court. Named as defendants were the Supreme Court of Kentucky "both individually and collectively," the Chief Justice and individual Justices of the Supreme Court in their respective official capacities, the Administrative Office of the Courts and its Director, and the Executive Assistant to the Chief Justice. For reasons presently discussed we ordered the proceeding transferred to this court and directed that it be styled, treated and practiced as an ex parte application for the ultimate relief desired by the petitioners, which is that they be provided "periodic inspections" and the right to copy whatever records are being compiled pursuant to KRS 532.075(6).
KRS 532.075 was enacted at the 1976 Extraordinary Session of the General Assembly as part of a series of statutory sections relating to the death penalty for serious criminal offenses. Ch. 15, Acts of 1976 (Ex. Session). These statutory sections were patterned after similar provisions enacted by the State of Georgia had passed constitutional muster in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976).
From a reading of the 1976 Act (KRS 532.025-532.100, incl.) it may be seen that from the beginning of the trial in a capital case there are four successive inquiries leading to final confirmation of the death sentence. First is a trial on the question of guilt or innocence. Then if the defendant is found guilty the court is required to resume the trial and conduct a presentence hearing, at which the same jury hears evidence of aggravating and mitigating circumstances as defined in KRS 532.025(2), determines whether any of those circumstances exist, and recommends a sentence. Thirdly, whatever may be the jury's recommendation, "upon the findings of the jury, the judge shall fix a sentence within the limits prescribed by law." Lastly, if the death sentence is imposed, KRS 532.075 requires that it be reviewed by the Supreme Court "on the record." This much must be done regardless of whether there is an appeal. Cf. KRS 532.075(2), (8).
Whether the trial judge may fix a penalty not recommended by the jury is a question that has not been litigated in this court. In Georgia the trial judge is bound by the jury's recommended sentence, though a sentence of death cannot be imposed unless at least one of the aggravating factors has been found to exist. §§ 26-3102, 27-2514, Ga. Code Ann. (1977).
(c) To compile such data as are deemed by the chief justice to be appropriate and relevant to the statutory questions concerning the validity of the sentence."
KRS 532.075(5) provides in part as follows (referring to the Supreme Court): "The court shall include in its decision a reference to those similar cases which it took into consideration."
In July of 1977 Farley's office wrote a letter to AOC expressing the desire "to have input into what types of data will be collected and . . . have access to that data." In August of 1977 another such letter was addressed to the then Chief Justice reporting that the petitioner Bendingfield had been convicted of two capital offenses and requesting all information compiled pursuant to KRS 532.075(6) so that the trial judge might be advised of the "factors . . . relevant to his decision regarding whether to accept the jury's recommendation of death for our client" and "relevant to our challenge to the constitutionality of the statute." In a reply prepared at the direction of the Chief Justice, AOC advised that the work had just begun, that no information was available thus far, and that whether it would become available at some time in the future was a question to be taken up with the Chief Justice. In November of 1977 the Public Advocate wrote the present Chief Justice to the effect that although the statute did not so require, it would avoid wasteful duplication of effort if the material being accumulated by AOC were made available to his office. A reply from the Chief Justice advised the Public Advocate that the matter had been discussed with the members of the court and the court was not convinced it was desirable.
Const. § 110(2)(a) confers upon the Supreme Court "the power to issue all writs . . . as may be necessary to exercise control of the Court of Justice." Prior to its amendment in 1975 (effective January 1, 1976) Const. § 110 provided that the Court of Appeals (now the Supreme Court) "shall have power to issue such writs as may be necessary to give it a general control of inferior jurisdictions." It was under this section that the Court of Appeals had authority to issue the familiar writs of mandamus and prohibition. Board of Prison Com'rs v. Crumbaugh, 161 Ky. 540, 170 S.W. 1187, 1188 (1914); Childers v. Stephenson, Ky., 320 S.W.2d 797, 799 (1959). But its authority was never restricted to that which was familiar. Quite apart from the express authority conferred with respect to inferior courts, "The right of self-preservation is inherent in the court, and is not derived from, or dependent upon, any act of the Legislature, or any express provision of the Constitution. It inheres in the court as such, and is necessary to vindicate its authority and to maintain its integrity." Capps v. Gore, 231 Ky. 185, 21 S.W.2d 266, 267 (1929). "It is the prime duty of this Court to assure to the best of its ability the orderly and effective administration of justice in this jurisdiction, and it has the inherent power to do what is reasonably necessary to attain that goal. . . . And, indeed, a court 'may, in appropriate cases, make ex parte orders without formally instituting an action to secure the desired relief.' " In re Appointment of Clerk of Court of Appeals, Ky., 297 S.W.2d 764, 765 (1957).
According to a recent magazine article as recalled by this writer, it is the philosophy of a leading scholar and advocate who occupies a chair at the law school of one of the great universities of this country to "confront the government" wherever he finds it. The courts, of course, are a part of the government. Clearly, what the Public Advocate has sought in this particular instance is a confrontation with this court. But how does one "confront" a court? Every plaintiff or petitioner who institutes a legal proceeding asks the court to do something. If the court declines to do it, he is aggrieved. He is, in fact, aggrieved by and at the court itself. But his only means of confrontation or redress is by way of an appeal; certainly he cannot sue the court. In any event, sooner or later he reaches the end of the line, and when the court that rejects his claim happens to be the court of last resort in that jurisdiction he finds himself with no place else to go, because there is no appeal from that court. It is precisely the same if the action is an original proceeding in a state supreme court. There is no appeal. And fundamentally it is the same also when, as in this case, someone who wants something from the Supreme Court asks for it and is denied, whether the request be made by letter or by formal petition. The denial is final because there is nowhere else to go. Regrettable as it may be, all things mortal are destined to end at some time and at some place, some without further appeal and some without any appeal at all.
The provision of Const. § 115 that in all cases there shall be allowed as a matter of right at least one appeal to another court obviously cannot apply to an original proceeding in the court of last resort.
This does not mean, as suggested by the Public Advocate during the course of the oral argument, that the court is "above the law," or that it so regards itself. That hackneyed canard was bruited about and confounded long ago. The final authority to say what the law is must reside somewhere in any governmental structure. In our systems, state and federal, it resides in the judicial department. "It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is." Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch.) 137, 177, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803). That this court is the final rung of the state's judicial ladder does not make it an oligarch, because even if the discipline of our profession were ignored, we simply could not bring it off.
"It may in the last place be observed that the supposed danger by judiciary encroachments on the legislative authority . . . is in reality a phantom. Particular misconstructions and contraventions of the will of the legislature may now and then happen; but they can never be so extensive as to amount to an inconvenience, or in any sensible degree to affect the order of the political system. This may be inferred with certainty, from the general nature of the judicial power, from the objects to which it relates, from the manner in which it is exercised, from its comparative weakness, and from its total incapacity to support its usurpation by force." The Federalist, No. 81.
In reality, what the petitioners have sought to do here is to appeal an action of this court to the circuit court with the objective of an eventual appeal back to this court, anticipating that the members of the court participating at the time of the initial decision would be replaced by others — in substance, a circuitous appeal from this court as regularly constituted to this same court as specially constituted. For the reasons already indicated, it cannot be done.
The further argument is made that because the members of this court were named as parties defendant in the proceeding as originally brought in the Franklin Circuit Court they became disqualified, not only by virtue of KRS 26A.015(2)(d)(1) but also by the principles of due process. Except for sheer ignorance, however, there is little to distinguish a suit brought in the Circuit Court against the Supreme Court and its members in their official capacities from a mere sham. It is constructive sham if not actual, the result being the same in either event. There can be no concealing that in this instance it was conceived and designed for the purpose of removing the members of the court from the consideration of a question that was their prerogative to decide. At the very most, the justices of the court were no more than nominal parties. Whatever interest they had, and have now, is strictly impersonal, and not of a substantive nature which might otherwise have been cause for disqualification. Cf. 46 Am.Jur.2d, Judges, § 111; Commonwealth v. Murphy, 295 Ky. 466, 174 S.W.2d 681, 683 (1943). It is true, as expressed in In re Murchison, 349 U.S. 133, 137, 75 S.Ct. 623, 625, 99 L.Ed. 942 (1955), cited by petitioners, that "no man can be a judge in his own case and no man is permitted to try cases where he has an interest in the outcome," but this case bears no resemblance to Murchison, or to Commonwealth v. Murphy, in which an amended petition alleged that the judge actually had aided and abetted the other defendants in their conduct of illegal gambling activities. Here we have, on the merits, only a question of law. Even if it be conceded for sake of the argument that the viewpoint indicated by the court through its previous rejection of the demands made upon it was legally in error, that would not be a ground for disqualification. Cf. Noe v. Commonwealth, 267 Ky. 607, 103 S.W.2d 104, 106 (1937); Sessmer v. Commonwealth, 273 Ky. 40, 115 S.W.2d 337, 338 (1938).
On its face, the Open Records Law, KRS 61.870- 61.884, incl. (Ch. 273, Acts of 1976), appears to apply. Whether its provisions conflict with or are harmonious with KRS 26A.200- 26A.220, incl. (Ch. 22, Acts of 1976 Ex.Sess.), we need not decide, because we are firmly of the opinion that the custody and control of the records generated by the courts in the course of their work are inseparable from the judicial function itself, and are not subject to statutory regulation.
"It is elementary law, of course, that a court has the right to protect the integrity of its own records." Gaston v. Collins, 146 Kan. 449, 72 P.2d 84, 86 (1937). Not much has been written on this isolated principle (perhaps, indeed, because it is elementary), but the court touched upon it in Summers v. City of Louisville, 140 Ky. 253, 130 S.W. 1101 (1910). In that case the Jefferson Circuit Court, acting under statutory rulemaking power, promulgated a rule permitting the city attorney of Louisville to have temporary custody of records in tax cases. The circuit court clerk contended that the rule conflicted with a statute requiring the clerk to "carefully preserve in his office all books and papers coming into his hands by virtue of his office."
Since 1952 such power has been recognized in this state as exclusively judicial. Cf. Ch. 84, Acts of 1952.
It is not our disposition to be jealous or hypertechnical over the boundaries that separate our domain from that of the legislature. Where statutes do not interfere or threaten to interfere with the orderly administration of justice, what boots it to quibble over which branch of government has rightful authority? We respect the legislative branch, and in the name of comity and common sense are glad to accept without cavil the application of its statutes pertaining to judicial matters, just as we accept KRS 532.075, even though it has been argued with much force that there is no constitutional basis for a statute enlarging the scope of appellate review beyond the matters of record in the proceeding under consideration. Cf. American Beauty Homes Corp. v. Louisville, etc., Ky., 379 S.W.2d 450, 455 (1964).
From the standpoint of its effect upon the operation of the court, there would be no difference between permitting the Public Advocate to look at our work while it is in progress and permitting all lawyers to see what we are reading while we are working on their cases. The mere looking would be only the beginning. Why look, without the right to comment — that is, to participate in the court's deliberations? If the door were thrown open for lawyers, litigants, or anyone else to rummage through the papers on our desks, not only would the interruptions be intolerable, but also the court would be deluged by floods of letters, supplemental briefs, motions for leave to file supplemental briefs, responses and further motions, all addressed to the subject of whether and why we might or might not to consider this, that or the other. We simply cannot and will not have it.
This, incidentally, is not the first time the Public Advocate has demanded access to materials generated by the court incident to its decision-making process. On prior occasions members of his staff have moved that we provide copies of recommendations prepared by our staff attorneys. These motions have been denied.
One of the melancholy developments of the passing era has been the decline in respect exhibited by lawyers to each other and to the courts. Battles in court were just as hard-fought 40 years ago as they are today — perhaps more so — but the prevailing decorum had the flavor of old bourbon. Though it is no longer so refined, most lawyers still adhere to the traditional standards of professional savoir faire. Regrettably, there seem to be so many more exceptions. We have exercised great restraint toward the Public Advocate and his staff thus far, but there are limits to the impudence that even this court will tolerate.
This again is not the first instance in which the Public Advocate or members of his staff have taken what this court regards as undue liberties in the form of insinuating remarks, resulting on one such occasion in a cautionary letter from the Chief Justice.
There is one fairly respectable argument in support of the petition. In Gardner v. Florida, 430 U.S. 349, 97 S.Ct. 1197, 51 L.Ed.2d 393 (1977), the Supreme Court of the United States held that a defendant had been deprived of due process by the withholding of a confidential presentence report considered by the trial judge in sentencing him to death in the face of an advisory jury verdict recommending life imprisonment. There are obvious differences between individualized information pertaining to the defendant personally, which is to be considered by a trial judge in fixing a sentence, and the impersonal data that may be used by an appellate court in determining whether the judgment of a trial court is or is not in line with what has been done in comparable cases. Whether those differences would command significance in the eyes of the Supreme Court of the United States we cannot be certain. We can only guess, being fully conscious that we have not always been successful in similar efforts.
It seems to us that the difference is quite fundamental. If a judge or jury deciding one's fate is going to consider reports of what other people say about him, certainly he should be entitled to see them. "The risk that some of the information accepted in confidence may be erroneous, or may be misinterpreted, by the investigator or by the sentencing judge, is manifest." Gardner v. Florida, supra, at 430 U.S. 359, 97 S.Ct. 1205. But we are not the sentencing court. In any given case before us we intend to comply with the statutory request to include in our decision a reference to those similar cases that have been taken into consideration. Presumably, however, the petitioners want to know not only what will be taken into consideration, but what will not, and to know it in advance, so that they can urge upon us what to choose and what to avoid. If they are constitutionally entitled to that much, perhaps they have the further right to submit the individual members of the court to exhaustive questionnaires designed to discover and provide against their tastes and predilections. After all, "No fixed legal categories or concepts can wholly isolate this process of selection and shaping; on the contrary, the influence of any inquirer's biological and social matrices is an inevitable limitation on the 'purity' of his reasoning." Patterson, Edwin W., Logic in the Law, 90 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 875, 894 (1942).
We are reminded of the apocryphal story of a conference long ago during which, after one judge of this court had looked at a case cited by another and said, "This case doesn't say that," the other judge grabbed up the book and retorted, "Show me where it doesn't say that!"
We do not find it possible to believe that in Gardner v. Florida, 430 U.S. 349, 97 S.Ct. 1197, 51 L.Ed.2d 393 (1977), the Supreme Court of the United States meant to lay down a principle so pervasive as to require an appellate court to lay out for inspection by the appellant, even in a capital case, all of the information in its hands from which it may seek perspective and guidance in reviewing the propriety of his sentence. We therefore hold that Gardner does not apply.
It follows a fortiori that a defendant has no right to the production of this court's files for use at the trial stage. The Public Advocate contends that because it was observed in Gregg, 428 U.S. at p. 181, 96 S.Ct. at p. 2929, that the jury "is an objective index of contemporary values," this kind of information is relevant as trial evidence to which a defendant has the right of compulsory process. The fault in this line of reasoning lies in the premise that evidence of what has happened in other similar cases is, because it tends to indicate contemporary values, admissible in the trial of a capital case. So far as we are concerned, that is a preposterous notion and such evidence is not admissible in the trial of a capital or any other criminal case. There is nothing in Gregg from which it may reasonably be inferred that the necessary standards for guidance of the jury in a capital case extend beyond pointing to "the main circumstances of aggravation or mitigation that should be weighed and weighed against each other when they are presented in a concrete case." ALI, Model Penal Code § 201.6, Comment 3, p. 71 (Tent.Draft No. 9, 1959), as quoted with approval in Gregg, 428 U.S. at p. 193, 96 S.Ct. 2909. KRS 532.025 enumerates these factors and requires that they be embraced in the instructions to the jury. They do not and should not include what has happened to other defendants in other cases, at other times and in other places.