Court Opinion

ID: 9732137
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:09:21.863348+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:23.950682
License: Public Domain

Cutter, J.
(Concurring) The cases cited in the opinion of the court (fn. 2) show that most other courts have now reached a result different from that reached by this court in 1952 in Commonwealth v. McNeil, 328 Mass. 436, 441-442, with respect to G. L. c. 265, § 2, as amended by St. 1951, c. 203. The statutes interpreted by these other courts were in many (if not most) respects comparable to our own statute.
It may be that, as a matter of first impression, this court could have interpreted the 1951 amendment as requiring the trial judge to instruct the jury to recommend that the death penalty be not imposed if they were unanimous on the issue of guilt of first degree miuder but divided on the issue of imposing the death penalty. In the event of a disagreement on penalty alone, such a charge would effect the imposition of the lesser penalty of life imprisonment. Such an interpretation would have been closer to the present decisions in other jurisdictions and might have avoided some constitutional doubts.
The interpretation made in the McNeil case, however, was made less than a year after the approval of the 1951 amendment (April 3, 1951) by a court which was at least generally familiar with its background and legislative history. The interpretation adopted has prevailed for nearly twentj- years and is consistent with the statutory language. No sufficiently strong constitutional doubts exist (despite the great changes in decisions on many criminal law issues in the last twenty years) to lead me to vote to overrule the McNeil case. A change in our rule (to one which some may reasonably regard as more logical and more humanitarian) seems a matter for legislative rather than judicial determination. Accordingly, I concur in the opinion of the court.