Court Opinion

ID: 9549255
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:15:27.023631+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:02.215940
License: Public Domain

MAUGHAN, Justice
(dissenting):
With the rigid adherence to the restrictive waiver doctrine, in a habeas corpus action involving the death penalty, I cannot concur. The need for finality of convictions is an insufficient reason when the convictions involve the death penalty in the first two cases tried under the new statute. The unbridled reliance on the infallibility of this court in assessing the constitutional issues involved in the prior appeals of Pierre and Andrews is not consistent with the broad role this court must play in performing its institutional function. As pointed out by the United States Supreme Court, since there is a qualitative difference in the sentence of death, there is a corresponding difference in the need for reliability in the determination that death is the appropriate *816punishment, in a specific case.1 Under the circumstances the claims of the petitioners should be reviewed in these proceedings with a consciousness of the qualitative difference of the sentences imposed.
In response to petitioners initial appeals regarding the validity of the death penalty statutes in Utah, this court relied on decisions rendered by the United States Supreme Court issued in 1976. Subsequent decisions have further added to the mosaic, from which emerges the pattern of basic constitutional doctrine. The Utah statutory plan for imposition of the death penalty does not conform with the minimal requirements of the United States Supreme Court. My concurring and dissenting opinion in State v. Brown, Utah, 607 P.2d 261 (1980), sets forth in detail my reasons for this conclusion.

. Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 305, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 2991, 49 L.Ed.2d 944 (1976). )•