Court Opinion

ID: 9642057
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:46:56.639838+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:42.592830
License: Public Domain

BARDGETT, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the principal opinion. I do not agree however that it was correct for the trial court to deny defense counsel’s request that the jury be informed of the full statutory sentence for capital murder in this case. The death penalty was not applicable. The prosecuting attorney advised the jury that he would be seeking the maximum punishment available in this case “which is life imprisonment”. The court refused to permit the jury to be informed that the maximum punishment was “imprisonment ... during his natural life and shall not be eligible for probation or parole until he has served a minimum of fifty years of his sentence.” Murder in the first degree was and is punishable by life imprisonment, but the statutory sentence in that instance does not mandate that the first fifty years be actually served in prison. Murder in the second degree is punishable by a sentence of from ten years to life imprisonment. However, should life imprisonment be imposed upon conviction of murder in the second degree, the statutory *73law does not require the first fifty years to be served in prison. In my opinion, if the jury is to be informed about the punishment available in a case, then it should be correctly informed and not misinformed. Certainly no one has any doubt about whether the penalty of life imprisonment without probation or parole for fifty years is a more severe sentence than life imprisonment without the limitation. That is precisely why the legislature enacted it and it is part and parcel of the statutory punishment. In this case the prosecutor was permitted to impanel the jury reference punishment-“life imprisonment”, but the defendant was refused the right to do so. In my opinion, this was error. However, I do not believe that the defendant was prejudiced by it in this case and I therefore concur.
Earlier cases involving the question of whether a jury should be informed concerning the possibility of parole or probation are not apposite to this case. In those cases the prohibition against release from the penitentiary for fifty years was not part of the sentence for the particular crime. In this case the prohibition against that type of release was part of the sentence and did not refer to the possibility of future clemency. The statute prohibited any clemency by way of probation or parole for the specified period. Any doubt as to whether or not the prohibition against release by way of probation or parole for the first fifty years, where the defendant is convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, is part of the sentence itself is laid to rest by the discussion in the principal opinion concerning the allegation that the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole for fifty years constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. It is clear that all courts have regarded the prohibition against parole for the specified period of fifty years as part of the sentence and punishment.
In my opinion, the attorneys for the state and the defense are entitled to question members of the panel against the backdrop of the possible statutory punishment for this particular crime as much now as they ever were. More importantly than that, however, the parties are entitled to have the jury correctly informed if they are to be informed about it at all.