Opinion ID: 1809569
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Jury-Override Issue

Text: Section 13A-5-47, Ala.Code 1975, a part of the death-penalty statute, provides: (a) After the sentence hearing has been conducted, and after the jury has returned an advisory verdict, ... the trial court shall proceed to determine the sentence. . . . . (e) ... While the jury's recommendation concerning sentence shall be given consideration, it is not binding upon the court. The jury by a vote of eight to four recommended that Apicella be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Section 13A-5-46(f), provides: The decision of the jury to return an advisory verdict recommending a sentence of life imprisonment without parole must be based on a vote of a majority of the jurors. The decision of the jury to recommend a sentence of death must be based on a vote of at least 10 jurors. The trial court sentenced Apicella to death. [7] Section 11 of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901 (the right to trial by jury) assures a person a right in certain situations (those in which that right existed at the time of the adoption of Alabama's first constitution and those in which that right existed by way of statute at the time of the adoption of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, Gilbreath v. Wallace, 292 Ala. 267, 270, 292 So.2d 651, 653 (1974)), to have a 12-person, impartial jury unanimously decide the facts. Clark v. Container Corp. of America, Inc., 589 So.2d 184 (Ala.1991); Gilbreath v. Wallace, supra; Kirk v. State, 247 Ala. 43, 22 So.2d 431 (1945); Baader v. State, 201 Ala. 76, 77 So. 370 (1917); Tims v. State, 26 Ala. 165 (1855); Judge Walter B. Jones, Trial by Jury in Alabama, 8 Ala. L.Rev. 274, 277 (1956); 16 Ruling Case Law 181 (1917). The law of Alabama, as it existed when the Constitution of 1901 was ratified, expressly conferred upon the jury the power to impose the sentence of death or the sentence of life imprisonment for a defendant found guilty of murder in the first degree (Ala.Code 1897, § 4858); to impose a term of imprisonment for a defendant found guilty of murder in the second degree (§ 4858), manslaughter (§ 4862), rape (§ 5444), robbery (§ 5479), or certain other offenses (§§ 5050, 4420, 4758); and to fix and determine the amount of the fine that a convicted felon had to pay (§ 5415). Section 1205 of Act No. 607, Ala. Acts 1977 (codified at Ala.Code 1975, § 13A-5-2), removed from the jury the right to sentence and to fix and determine the amount of fines. [8] Did Section 1205 of Act No. 607 violate § 11 of the Constitution of Alabama? If the statutory right of the jury to determine punishment was frozen into the constitutional right to a trial by jury, then §§ 13A-5-1(a) and 13A-5-47 (making the trial court, not the jury, the sentencing authority) would violate the Alabama Constitution, and if it does violate the Constitution then the judicial override in this case would be unconstitutionalbut not only that: every death sentence imposed by an Alabama court for an offense that occurred after 12:01 a.m. on July 1, 1981 (the effective date of the 1981 death-penalty act; see Ala. Acts 1981, No. 81-178, § 24), would be unconstitutional and every sentence to life imprisonment without parole imposed for a capital offense and every felony sentence imposed under Article 1 of Title 13A, Chapter 5, would violate the Alabama Constitution. Therefore, the question resolves into the issue whether the punishment a defendant is to receive is a question of fact that must be determined by a unanimous jury? This Court has indicated that the constitutional right to trial by jury does not encompass assessing punishment in capital cases, Ex parte Jackson, 672 So.2d 810 (Ala.1995) (Houston, J., concurring in the result); Ex parte Giles, 632 So.2d 577 (Ala.1993). [9] However, this Court has held that in civil cases the constitutional right to trial by jury does encompass the assessment of punishment. Smith v. Schulte, 671 So.2d 1334 (Ala.1995); Henderson v. Alabama Power Co., 627 So.2d 878 (Ala. 1993). In Henderson and Schulte, this Court held that the right of a jury to punish in civil cases was protected by § 11, so that the Legislature not only could not remove from the jury the right to punish, but could not even control the extent of the punishment. Henderson and Schulte have created confusion as to what the constitutionally protected right to trial by jury encompassed. Henderson, 627 So.2d at 898 (Maddox, J., dissenting), and at 904 (Houston, J., dissenting); Ex parte Giles, 632 So.2d at 586 (Maddox, J., concurring specially) and at 587 (Houston, J., concurring in the result); Smith v. Schulte, 671 So.2d at 1348 (Houston, J., dissenting), at 1355 (Hooper, C.J., dissenting from the order overruling the application for rehearing), at 1361 (Maddox, J., dissenting from the order overruling the application for rehearing), and at 1366 (Houston, J., dissenting from the order overruling the application for rehearing); Ex parte Jackson, 672 So.2d at 811 (Houston, J., concurring in the result). To the extent they held that § 11 restricted the Legislature from removing from the jury the unbridled right to punish, Henderson and Schulte were wrongly decided. We hold that the determination of punishment is not a question of fact and that § 11 of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901 does not require that a jury determine the punishment of a criminal defendant. Subsections (a) and (e) of § 13A-5-47, Ala.Code 1975, do not violate § 11 of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901.