Opinion ID: 2116540
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 46

Heading: 3.3. Three-Judge Panel

Text: Lotter argues that § 29-2521 permits the trial court too much discretion in determining the order of procedure at a capital sentencing and is standardless concerning the three-judge panel's function. Lotter bases this argument on Neb. Const. art. V, § 19, which states: The organization, jurisdiction, powers, proceedings, and practice of all courts of the same class or grade, so far as regulated by law and the force and effect of the proceedings, judgments and decrees of such courts, severally, shall be uniform. We construed this section, then appearing in Neb. Const. art. VI, § 19, in State v. Magney, 52 Neb. 508, 513, 72 N.W. 1006, 1008 (1897), where we stated that fundamental law classifies the courts of the state, which classification the legislature is powerless to alter or change, and that any enactment which defines or regulates the jurisdiction and powers of the courts infringes the constitution if such law is not uniform as to all courts of the same grade or class; in other words, that the jurisdiction and powers conferred upon a justice, county, or district court of one county can be neither more nor less than that given the court of the same class in any other county of the state. The term class, or grade, as employed in the constitution, evidently refers to the different kinds of courts established in the state,that is, all justice courts constitute one class or grade with the same jurisdiction, and that the county and district courts, respectively, belong to a separate class or grade, possessing uniform jurisdiction and powers. Indeed, the section of the constitution already quoted [Neb. Const. art. VI, § 19] is too plain to admit of any other or different construction being placed upon it. Thus, because § 29-2521 applies equally to every court in the class to which the statute is intended to apply, it does not violate Neb. Const. art. V, § 19. It is clear that § 29-2521 is intended to apply to the district court class, which class conducts capital sentencing proceedings. See § 29-2521. It is likewise clear that § 29-2521 applies equally to every court in that class. See id. That the statute gives the district courts some discretion in conducting capital sentencing proceedings does not render it unconstitutional under Neb. Const. art. V, § 19. See State v. Simants, 197 Neb. at 562, 250 N.W.2d at 889 (stating that [t]he argument that the sentencing judge is given too much discretion under the Nebraska scheme has also been foreclosed by the United States Supreme Court decisions). Discretion indicates that proceedings will be inconsistent, but does not indicate that proceedings will lack uniformity in a constitutional sense. Indeed, we stated in Simants that the sentencing authority must exercise some degree of discretion in making its decision. Id. at 563, 250 N.W.2d at 890. To the extent that such proceedings lack uniformity due to the exercise of the district courts' discretion, the appropriate challenge is whether the discretion used by the district court in the case at issue amounted to abuse.