Opinion ID: 398618
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the usurpation issue

Text: 16 Appellant prisoners argue that, even assuming the Arizona Supreme Court intended in Watson to accomplish what we have found they did, the effect of the decision constitutes judicial legislation to create criminal penalties in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause and the Article IV, section 4, guarantee of a republican form of government for the states. We do not agree. 17 To support their argument, appellants employ alternative approaches. They assert, first, that in light of the legislative history and wording of Ariz.Rev.Stat. § 13-454, there is no permissible way to interpret it to allow a court to consider all mitigating circumstances, and therefore only a legislative amendment could cure it. In the alternative, appellants posit that even if the Arizona Supreme Court could have reached its interpretation of section 13-454 by some permissible means, it instead attempted to achieve that end by a severance, which in this case requires the addition of language to the statute, and that can be done only by the legislature. In either case, appellants claim that the Arizona Supreme Court's attempt in Watson to conform section 13-454 to constitutional requirements usurped the function of the state legislature and was thus invalid. 18
19 Normally the construction of a state statute by the highest court of that state must be treated as if it had been incorporated into the words of the statute. Poulos v. New Hampshire, 345 U.S. 395, 402, 73 S.Ct. 760, 764, 97 L.Ed. 1105 (1953). State courts have the final authority to interpret and, where they see fit, to reinterpret that state's legislation. Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U.S. 157, 82 S.Ct. 248, 7 L.Ed.2d 207 (1961). See also, Wainwright v. Stone, 414 U.S. 21, 22-23, 94 S.Ct. 190, 192-193, 38 L.Ed.2d 179 (1973); N.A.A.C.P. v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 432 (1963); Winters v. New York, 333 U.S. 507, 514, 68 S.Ct. 665, 669, 92 L.Ed. 840 (1948). 20 The Supreme Court has established that courts should construe legislation in a constitutional manner if fairly possible, Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22, 62, 52 S.Ct. 285, 296, 76 L.Ed. 598 (1932); see also Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 613, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 2916, 37 L.Ed.2d 830 (1973), and that state courts can use statutory interpretation to validate otherwise questionable death penalty statutes. See Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242, 96 S.Ct. 2960, 49 L.Ed.2d 913 (1976); also see discussion in Knapp v. Cardwell, 513 F.Supp. at 11 n.12. Federal courts will not review a state supreme court's interpretation of its own statute unless that interpretation is clearly untenable and amounts to a subterfuge to avoid federal review of a deprivation by the state of rights guaranteed by the Constitution. See Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 691 n.11, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 1885 n.11, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975); Radio Station WOW, Inc. v. Johnson, 326 U.S. 120, 129, 65 S.Ct. 1475, 1480, 89 L.Ed. 2092 (1945); Ward v. Love County, 253 U.S. 17, 40 S.Ct. 419, 64 L.Ed. 751 (1920); Terre Haute & I. R. Co. v. Indiana, 194 U.S. 579, 24 S.Ct. 767, 48 L.Ed. 1124 (1904). 21
22 Appellants argue that review is necessary and proper here because the Arizona Supreme Court's interpretation of section 13-454 is clearly incompatible with the language of section 13-454 and its legislative history. 23 We agree with the district court that the Watson construction of the statute is not untenable. Knapp v. Cardwell, 513 F.Supp. at 12-13. The only positive command of section 13-454(F) is that the court shall consider the mitigating factors listed there. Its language nowhere dictates that the court shall consider no other mitigating factors, nor does the language of subsection D preclude use of unlisted factors in deciding whether any mitigating circumstances are sufficiently substantial to call for leniency. Ariz.Rev.Stat. § 13-454(D). 4 Moreover, the fact that a bill introduced in the House of Representatives of Arizona, containing an explicit provision for open mitigation, was defeated in favor of a Senate bill containing no such explicit language on open mitigation, does not compel a finding that the legislature intended the list of mitigating factors to be exclusive. See discussion in Knapp v. Cardwell, 513 F.Supp. at 12-13 n.15. 24
25 We agree with the district court that the Arizona Supreme Court in Watson was merely reinterpreting Ariz.Rev.Stat. § 13-454. Arizona law adjures that statutes should be construed to effect their objects, and that interpretations that imperil the constitutionality of statutes be avoided when reasonably possible. Ariz.Rev.Stat. §§ 1-211, et. seq. 5 The court in Watson was being guided by this precept. The language of the statute remained precisely what it had been since it was first enacted. If anything was severed by Watson, it was the gloss imparted to the statute (erroneously we now know) by Richmond. We see no difference between such a severance in correction of earlier judicial error and an overruling or reinterpretation. 26 We also agree with the district court that the Watson result was not precluded by the Watson court's refusal to repudiate State v. Richmond. See discussion in 513 F.Supp. at 13-14. No matter how the court may have characterized it, what it did in Watson was to undo what it had done earlier in Richmond. 27 Our conclusion regarding the Watson interpretation of section 13-454 means that the Arizona Supreme Court did not impose a penalty unauthorized by the legislature in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. At all relevant times, Arizona had on its books a statute that clearly authorized death as a punishment for the crimes each of the appellants committed. The United States Supreme Court's decision in Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978), which declared unconstitutional an Ohio death penalty statute that expressly limited the mitigating factors the sentencing court could consider, did not render the Arizona death penalty a nullity. It merely made sentences rendered under its then current construction unenforceable. See In re Graham, 138 U.S. 461, 11 S.Ct. 363, 34 L.Ed. 1051 (1891). This left it open to the Arizona Supreme Court to reinterpret section 13-454 to conform to the constitutional mandate or to adhere to its original interpretation and invoke the provision for a life sentence. See Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U.S. 157, 82 S.Ct. 248, 7 L.Ed.2d 207 (1961). It chose to reinterpret section 13-454. The Constitution does not preclude that choice. See Smiley v. Kansas, 196 U.S. 447, 455, 25 S.Ct. 289, 290, 49 L.Ed. 546 (1904). 6 28 The choice made by the Arizona Supreme Court between competing interpretations of the statute was not a legislative act. Unlike legislative choice, the selection by a court between competing interpretations is circumscribed by legislative intent which, while not known precisely with respect to all possible issues, does eliminate a wide range of choices that would otherwise be available. Moreover, judicial choice can only exist as the result of a highly structured adversarial process instituted not by judges but by the adversaries themselves. And most importantly, the court's choice of competing interpretations, in the absence of constitutional constraints, can be overturned by the legislature. These differences justify our rejection of the charge of usurpation, and so it follows that we also must reject the related due process and guarantee clause arguments. 7 VI. THE EX POST FACTO ISSUE 29 It has been said that the ex post facto clause prohibits: 30 any statute which punishes as a crime an act previously committed, which was innocent when done; which makes more burdensome the punishment for a crime, after its commission, or which deprives one charged with crime of any defense available according to law at the time when the act was committed.... 31 Beazell v. Ohio, 269 U.S. 167, 169, 46 S.Ct. 68, 70 L.Ed. 216 (1925) (emphasis added). Although the ex post facto prohibition, United States Constitution, art. I, § 10, cl. 1, literally applies only to legislative acts, the Supreme Court has incorporated the principle upon which the prohibition rests into the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. See Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 191-92, 97 S.Ct. 990, 992-93, 51 L.Ed.2d 260 (1977); Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347, 84 S.Ct. 1697, 12 L.Ed.2d 894 (1964). 32 The first of appellant's two ex post facto arguments is that, because section 13-454 as interpreted in Richmond v. Cardwell, 450 F.Supp. 519 (D.Ariz.1978) was unconstitutional (per Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978)), Arizona had no death penalty prior to Watson. Watson, therefore, was a judicial enlargement of the punishment for appellants' crimes committed before that decision in violation of the ex post facto clause. 33 We agree with the district court that Dobbert v. Florida, 432 U.S. 282, 97 S.Ct. 2290, 53 L.Ed.2d 344 (1977), requires rejection of this argument. Dobbert committed his crime when Florida had an applicable death penalty statute of a type later declared unconstitutional in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972). Prior to Dobbert's trial, Florida passed a new death penalty statute to conform to the new constitutional requirements as defined in Furman v. Georgia. Dobbert was tried and sentenced under the new statute, which was found constitutional in Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242, 96 S.Ct. 2960, 49 L.Ed.2d 913 (1976). 34 Dobbert argued that, because the type of Florida death statute in effect when he committed his crime was later found to be unconstitutional, Florida had no valid death penalty at the time of his crime. Therefore, his trial and sentencing under the new law resulted in an ex post facto enlargement of the penalty for his crime subsequent to the time of its commission. The Supreme Court in Dobbert rejected the notion that constitutional invalidation of the former Florida death penalty statute rendered it a nullity. 432 U.S. at 297, 97 S.Ct. at 2300. See Chicot County Drainage District v. Baxter State Bank, 308 U.S. 371, 374, 60 S.Ct. 317, 318, 84 L.Ed. 329 (1940). Instead, the Court found that the statute was an operative fact that gave defendant fair notice of the penalty-death-that Florida would seek to exact for his crime. Dobbert v. Florida, 432 U.S. at 298, 97 S.Ct. at 2300. This notice provided compliance with the ex post facto provision of the United States Constitution. 432 U.S. at 298, 97 S.Ct. at 2300. The Arizona law prior to Watson here performed the same function. See State v. Smith, 125 Ariz. 412, 610 P.2d 46 (1980). 8 35 Some of the appellants attempt to distinguish Dobbert on the ground that Dobbert was tried and sentenced under a constitutional death penalty statute, whereas they were originally tried and sentenced before Watson. The Dobbert opinion makes it clear that this is a distinction without ex post facto implications. The Supreme Court in Dobbert held that the new Florida statute was not an ex post facto law both because it was procedural and because it was ameliorative. 432 U.S. at 294, 97 S.Ct. at 2298. That is, it neither made criminal a theretofore innocent act, nor aggravated a crime previously committed, nor provided greater punishment, nor changed the proof necessary to convict. 432 U.S. at 293, 97 S.Ct. at 2298. The change in the Arizona statute as a result of the interpretation by Watson is likewise both procedural and ameliorative. Its only effect was to enlarge the ability of defendants to introduce mitigating circumstances at sentencing. Thus, no ex post facto problems arise even with respect to those appellants tried and sentenced before Watson. 36 Appellants next argue that the invalidation of the previous Arizona sentencing procedure by Watson resulted in the acquisition of a fully matured right in each to receive a life sentence under Section 10, Chapter 138 of the 1973 Arizona Session Laws. This section provides that if the death penalty is held unconstitutional on final appeal, persons previously sentenced to death will receive a life sentence with no possibility of parole for 25 years. It follows, appellants insist, that to subject them to a more severe sentence than life imprisonment is an enlargement of the penalty contrary to the ex post facto prohibition of the Constitution. 37 We do not agree. Our deference to Arizona's interpretation of its own laws requires this result. Questions of when and how section 10 takes effect pertain to Arizona law, and have been resolved adversely to appellants by the courts of that state. Section 10 provides for the imposition of a life sentence (i)n the event the death penalty is held unconstitutional on final appeal. 1973 Ariz.Sess. Laws § 10, ch. 138. The Watson court held that section 10 was intended to apply only if the death penalty itself was found unconstitutional. 120 Ariz. at 441, 586 P.2d at 1265. An invalidation of sentencing procedures would not make section 10 operative. Therefore, appellants never received a life sentence under Arizona law. We are not empowered to provide such a sentence. Appellants have been, and continue to be, under sentence of death.