Court Opinion

ID: 9853478
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:49:27.753646+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:49.663362
License: Public Domain

Bobbitt, C.J., and Sharp, J.,
dissenting as to death sentence.
We vote to vacate the judgment imposing the death sentence. In our opinion, the verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree should be upheld and the cause remanded for pronouncement of a judgment imposing a sentence of life imprisonment.
The crime was committed on June 22, 1968, when our statutes relating to capital punishment for murder in the first degree were G.S. 14-17 and G.S. 15-162.1. It was and is our opinion that, until the repeal of G.S. 15-162.1 on March 25, 1969, the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in United States v. Jackson, 390 U.S. 570, 20 L. ed. 2d 138, 88 S. Ct. 1209 (1968), and in Pope v. United States, 392 U.S. 651, 20 L. ed. 2d 1317, 88 S. Ct. 2145 (1968), rendered invalid the death penalty provisions of G.S. 14-17. The reasons underlying our opinion have been stated fully in the dissenting opinions in State v. Spence, 274 N.C. 536, 164 S.E. 2d 593, and in State v. Atkinson, 275 N.C. 288, 167 S.E. 2d 241, and in State v. Hill, 276 N.C. 1, 171 S.E. 2d 897 (1969). Repetition is unnecessary.
G.S. 15-162.1 was repealed by Chapter 117, Session Laws of 1969. The 1969 Act, if construed to provide greater punishment for murder in the first degree than the punishment provided therefor when the crime was committed, would, in that respect, be unconstitutional as ex post jacto. 16 Am. Jur. 2d, Constitutional Law § 396. In our view, if the death penalty provisions of G.S. 14-17 were invalid on June 22, 1968, when the crime was committed, they were invalid as to this defendant in April, 1969, when he was tried, convicted and sentenced.