Court Opinion

ID: 9580500
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:05:35.356484+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:19.189898
License: Public Domain

Thompson, Justice,
dissenting.
1. Today, a majority of this Court has decided that lethal injection will be the method of execution for all condemned inmates in this state. For those who view appellate courts as a means of achieving desired policy goals and especially this desired policy goal, the majority’s opinion will be considered a victory. For those who understand that it is the role of the courts to interpret the laws and not to make them, the effect will be the opposite, regardless of the merits of electrocution versus lethal injection.
This Court is vested with the power to review "all cases in which the constitutionality of a law, ordinance, or constitutional provision has been drawn in question[.]” Ga. Const. Art. VI, Sec. VI, Par. II. It is our role to interpret the laws, to apply and judicially administer them while enforcing them in a case of litigation, such as the case now before us. See Thompson v. Talmadge, 201 Ga. 867, 874 (41 SE2d 883) (1947). We do not make the laws; the General Assembly makes the laws. Id. Of course, carried far enough, the power to interpret the laws, to pass upon their constitutionality, becomes the power to make them.
Our task here, as must so frequently be emphasized and reemphasized, is to pass upon the constitutionality of legislation that has been enacted and that is challenged. This is the sole task for judges. We should not allow our personal preferences as to the wisdom of legislative and congressional action, or our distaste for such action, to guide our judicial decision in cases such as these. The temptations to cross that policy line are very great.
Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238, 411 (92 SC 2726, 33 LE2d 346) (1972) (Blackmun, J., dissenting).
2. Based on a new interpretation of the Georgia Constitution, the majority has determined that the legislature really meant to abolish execution by electrocution for all condemned prisoners when it amended OCGA § 17-10-38. They have determined that this amendment reflects the shifting or evolution of the societal consensus on *338state imposed electrocution. In fact, they proclaim that the amendment itself is “clear and objective evidence” that the General Assembly, and therefore the people of this state, condemn any future use of electrocution as a means of execution because they consider it to be cruel and unusual. And they determine all this despite the fact that the amended statute plainly states that “Code Section 17-10-38 as it existed prior to its amendment . . . shall continue to apply with respect to crimes committed prior to May 1, 2000[.]” Ga. L. 2000, p. 949, § 6.
As this case illustrates, legislatures are better suited to determining the contemporary standards than are the courts.
“Courts are not representative bodies. They are not designed to be a good reflex of a democratic society. Their judgment is best informed, and therefore most dependable, within narrow limits. Their essential quality is detachment, founded on independence. History teaches that the independence of the judiciary is jeopardized when courts become embroiled in the passions of the day and assume primary responsibility in choosing between competing political, economic and social pressures.”
Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 175 (96 SC 2909, 49 LE2d 859) (1976), quoting Dennis v. United States, 341 U. S. 494, 525 (71 SC 857, 95 LE 1137) (1951) (Frankfurter, J., concurring in affirmance of judgment). That is not to say that the courts play no role in the determination of whether a punishment is constitutionally forbidden; the constitutional proscription against cruel and unusual punishments does function as a restraint upon the legislature’s creation of punishments that inflict cruelty or unnecessary suffering. See Gregg, supra at 174. But that does not mean that the courts may override the legislature’s role in reflecting society’s attitudes and moral values.
[A] heavy burden rests on those who would attack the judgment of the representatives of the people. . . . This is true in part because the constitutional test [for cruel and unusual punishment] is intertwined with an assessment of contemporary standards. . . . “In a democratic society legislatures, not courts, are constituted to respond to the will and consequently the moral values of the people.” [Cit.]
Gregg, 428 U. S. at 175-176. The democratic process can be slow, confusing, and confounding. But, unlike the controlled presentation of evidence by litigants in a courtroom, it allows citizens unrelated to the cause in action to weigh in with their opinions, to contact their representatives and let their thoughts be known. Thus, the General *339Assembly is much better positioned than this Court to sift through the wide range of information, opinions, values, motives and ideals held by the citizens of this state and arrive at a consensus. The Justices of this Court should not substitute their judgment for that of the legislature.
The majority posits that when drafting the amendment, the General Assembly prepared for the possibility that this Court might eventually declare execution by electrocution unconstitutional. According to the majority, the “what may be” language in the statute shows “clear and objective evidence” that the General Assembly and thus the people of this state condemn state imposed electrocution and sought to abolish its future use. This argument is illogical and ironic. If the General Assembly sought to abolish electrocution as a method of execution, it could have done so. It could have established lethal injection as the sole means of execution for all condemned inmates in this state, but it did not. The language of this provision in the statute does indeed make a point, but not the one the majority wishes to make. The General Assembly simply planned for the possibility that this Court may step in and re-write the law in this area. Rather than signal a change in the societal consensus on electrocution, it seems that the legislature simply understood the nature of judicial power and its attendant temptations.
3. The majority now interprets the cruel and unusual clause of the Georgia Constitution to prohibit execution by electrocution.9 It makes reference to cruelties inflicted in past eras, but fails to note that those cruelties were not ended by judicial fiat, but by legislative action. There is no guillotine in this country or burning at the stake because the people through their elected representatives will not have it, not because the courts have told the people that it violates their values.
The majority claims that state imposed electrocution has fallen *340into disfavor in this country, but it does not cite a single case where an appellate court in another state or the federal system has held electrocution to be cruel and unusual under a state constitution or the federal constitution. That is because there are no such cases.
4. The evidence regarding state imposed electrocution cited by the majority is not new. Electrocution has been Georgia’s method of execution since 1924.10 The last execution in this state occurred in June 1998.11 As the majority acknowledges, most of the evidence in the Moore and Dawson cases has been included in the records of other cases before this Court in various forms. Much of it is drawn from the public record, such as newspaper articles describing electrocutions or law review articles doing the same. The majority describes an execution which required two jolts of electricity to effectuate. This took place in 1984. The majority cannot claim to be surprised by this evidence and suddenly spurred into action. Something may have changed in the past couple of years, but it was not the amount of available evidence on electrocution. Moreover, the General Assembly had access to most of this information when it amended OCGA § 17-10-38.
Further, the majority could not determine from the evidence whether execution by electrocution involves conscious suffering.12 For that reason the majority focuses on mutilation as the reason it deems electrocution to be cruel and unusual. The primary evidence of this purported mutilation is the post-execution autopsy photographs of the inmates who have been executed in Georgia since the death penalty was reinstated. These photographs, some of which were taken moments before autopsy, generally show a first-degree burn the size of a quarter on one leg and sometimes several small, slight burns less than 74 inch in width on the scalp. These small burns generally occur where the electrodes make contact with the body.13 From this evidence of slight bodily damage, the majority concludes that every electrocution results in mutilation. In effect, the majority defines consti*341tutionally forbidden “mutilation” to be anything other than a needle prick. They make clear which method of execution they prefer.
Decided October 5, 2001.

Case No. S01A1041

Thomas M. West, Robert H. Citronberg, for appellant.
Paul L. Howard, Jr., District Attorney, Peggy R. Katz, Assistant District Attorney, Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Susan V. Boleyn, Senior Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
Robert L. Tsai, Natsu T. Saito, Amy G. Donnella, Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore, Emmet J. Bondurant, Michael B. Terry, Jane E. Fahey, Rogers & Hardin, C.B. Rogers, Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan, John A. Chandler, Doffermyre, Shields, Canfield, Knowles & Devine, Ralph I. Knowles, Miles J. Alexander, amici curiae.

Case No. S01A1210

5. Capital punishment is an issue that evokes strong emotions and a wide range of views. The means by which we impose the ultimate criminal sanction speaks volumes about our values and our sense of decency, and this is precisely why the legislature, which is constituted to embody those values, has the primary role in this area. It is the General Assembly, not this Court, that is able to sift through the information and ideals held by the citizens of this state and arrive at a moral consensus, to separate justice from anger toward convicted murderers on one hand and reality from the exaggerations of the professionally sensitive on the other. The people, through their elected representatives in the General Assembly, specifically retained state imposed electrocution for all death-sentenced inmates who committed capital crimes before May 1, 2000. Ga. L. 2000, p. 947, § 1. If I were the General Assembly, I might make a different law. “But, while we have an obligation to insure that constitutional bounds are not overreached, we may not act as judges as we might as legislators.” Gregg, 428 U. S. at 174-175. However tempted, however much they may dislike a law, courts should not use judicial power to transform their preferences into constitutional mandates. Because today’s decision reflects not the evolving standards of decency of the people of Georgia, but the evolving opinions of the majority members of this Court, I dissent.
I am authorized to state that Justice Carley and Justice Hines join in this dissent.
*342Michael Mears, Stephen B. Bright, Althea L. Buafo, for appellant.
Timothy G. Vaughn, District Attorney, Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Susan V. Boleyn, Senior Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore, Emmet J. Bondurant, Michael B. Terry, Jane E. Fahey, Rogers & Hardin, C.B. Rogers, Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan, John A. Chandler, Doffermyre, Shields, Canfield, Knowles & Devine, Ralph I. Knowles, Miles J. Alexander, amici curiae.

 The Supreme Court of Georgia is the final arbiter of the meaning of the Georgia Constitution. See Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032, 1041 (103 SC 3469, 77 LE2d 1201) (1983) (It is fundamental that state courts be left free and unfettered by federal courts in interpreting their state constitutions); Thompson v. Talmadge, 201 Ga. at 872 (Georgia courts have the exclusive function of interpreting the state constitution); Ga. Const. Art. VI, Sec. VI, Par. II (the Supreme Court of Georgia has exclusive appellate jurisdiction of cases involving the construction of the state constitution); Ga. Const. Art. VI, Sec. VI, Par. VI (the decisions of the Supreme Court of Georgia are binding on all other state courts). As long as this Court does not invoke federal law as the basis for its decision or violate minimum federal constitutional standards, there is no higher court, including the United States Supreme Court, that can overrule us. See Michigan v. Long, supra; Fleming v. Zant, 259 Ga. 687 (3) (386 SE2d 339) (1989). It is perhaps no accident then that, despite the fact that the defendants strenuously argued that state imposed electrocution violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution, the majority confines its analysis to an interpretation of the Georgia Constitution.

 The 1924 statute adopted electrocution as the method of execution to replace hanging. Ga. L. 1924, p. 195, § 1.

 In fact, this Court unanimously affirmed that “[e]xecution by electrocution is not cruel and unusual punishment” almost a year after the last execution. See Pruitt v. State, 270 Ga. 745 (6) (514 SE2d 639) (1999).

 Experts testified that electrocution renders the condemned unconscious within milliseconds and dead within seconds, although there may be additional reflexive muscle contractions. In the Moore case, the trial court, which heard evidence from both sides, did not find that there was conscious suffering by the condemned and ruled that electrocution was not cruel and unusual.

 The majority also points out that the brain heats up to 135 or 145 degrees although it is unclear how the heating of an internal organ can be considered disfiguring or mutilating. It is also hard to imagine a method of death that would not damage an internal organ in some way.