Opinion ID: 1929427
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Bills 1 & 2

Text: These bills were reserved to the overruling of defendant's objection that the jury selected to try him was not impartially drawn from a cross section of the community. The ground relied upon is that although veniremen were chosen despite the fact that they voiced general objections to the death penalty or expressed conscientious or religious scruples against its infliction, intense questioning by the District Attorney into the feelings of the jurors towards the death penalty unduly influenced them to adopt a severe attitude toward this defendant. This, defense counsel suggests, is an improper manner of questioning potential jurors. He relies upon the decision of the United States Supreme Court in 1968 in the case of Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776. Aside from the fact that defense counsel concedes, and the per curiam of the trial judge to this bill recites, that no prospective jurors were excused because they objected to the death penalty, there is no merit to this bill. This case was tried in February 1971. In June 1972, the United States Supreme Court decided Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346, declaring the death penalty unconstitutional as then imposed and administered under statutes similar to Louisiana's enactments on the same subject. In keeping with this mandate, those provisions of Louisiana's statutes imposing the death penalty were soon thereafter declared unconstitutional by this Court in State v. Franklin, 263 La. 344, 268 So.2d 249 (1972). As pointed out, this defendant was found guilty without capital punishment, and the death penalty was not imposed. Therefore, the rule announced in Witherspoon designed to reprobate the hanging jury is not relevant to this conviction and the sentence to life imprisonment at hard labor. Furthermore, the death penalty cannot be imposed for this offense after Furman v. Georgia, for there remained no valid statute applicable to this case which authorizes the death penalty. State v. Fallon, 290 So.2d 273 (La.1974); State v. Foy, 278 So.2d 38 (La.1973). Compare La.Code Crim.Proc. art. 798(2); La.R.S. 14:30 as amended by Act 109 of 1973, ¶ 1 reimposing the death penalty effective July 2, 1973 and providing: This Act shall not apply to any crime committed before the effective date of this Act. Crimes committed before that time shall be governed by the law existing at the time the crime was committed. These bills have no merit.