Court Opinion

ID: 9744960
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:25:13.29461+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:53.930185
License: Public Domain

Quirico, J.
(dissenting in part). The defendant was convicted of the crimes of murder in the first degree, kidnapping, indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of fourteen, and carnal knowledge and abuse of a female child. All four offenses arose out of the same incident and all were committed against the same victim. In part 4 of the court’s opinion it is stated: “It seems clear that the jury, since they concluded that the defendant was guilty as to all indictments, reached their verdict of murder in the first degree based on a conclusion that the defendant raped or attempted to rape the victim.”
Under G. L. c. 265, § 2, as amended through St. 1956, c. 731, § 12, as in effect at all times material to this case, the death penalty was mandatory for a person guilty of murder in the first degree “unless the jury shall by their verdict, and as a part thereof, upon and after consideration of all the evidence, recommend that the sentence of death be not imposed, in which case he shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for life.” The jury *321did not recommend that the sentence of death be not imposed, and indeed they could make no such recommendation in this case because § 2 provides further that “[n]o such recommendation shall be made by a jury or recorded by the court if the murder was committed in connection with the commission of rape or an attempt to commit rape.” On this combination of facts and law, the trial judge, following the clear mandate of G. L. c. 265, § 2, sentenced the defendant to death on the conviction of murder. The several consecutive sentences imposed for the other crimes are not at issue in this dissent. All the sentences were imposed before the decision in the case of Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, on June 29, 1972.
Despite the factual and statutory background described above, this court has this day held that the death penalty imposed on the defendant “must be vacated,” and it has ordered that “the murder indictment is remanded to the Superior Court where the sentence of death is to be vacated and a sentence of imprisonment for life is to be imposed.” The holding and order are preceded by the statement that the death penalty for the crime of rape-murder is proscribed by the Constitution of this Commonwealth, citing as authority therefor the decision in Commonwealth v. O’Neal, ante, 242, 243 (1975) (O’Neal II), decided this day. The relationship between the O’Neal decision and the order that the sentence of death in the present case be vacated is further indicated by the following statement in fn. 6 of the court’s opinion in this case: “[I]f we had not held in . . . [the O’Neal II case], that even the mandatory death penalty applicable to rape-murder is unconstitutional under our State Constitution, it seems clear that this court might well have been constrained to affirm the death penalty in this case.”
For all the reasons stated in the dissenting opinion of Reardon, J., which I joined, in the O’Neal II case, I also dissent from the action of the court in holding in this *322case, as it did in the O’Neal II case, that in effect (a) the General Court has somehow, lost the constitutional power which it has at all times heretofore possessed to mandate, as matter of legislative judgment and policy, that the penalty for the crime of rape-murder shall be death, and (b) the State Constitution which has at all times prior hereto permitted the General Court to mandate the death penalty for that crime now prohibits it from doing so.
In the O’Neal II case, four members of this court, Tauro, C.J., and Hennessey, Kaplan, and Wilkins, JJ., concluded that the General Court may no longer mandate the death penalty for the crime of rape-murder, basing their conclusions on one or more of several constitutional grounds, no one of which grounds had more than three adherents. A fifth member, Braucher, J., concurred in the result on a basis of statutory construction, but he did so after first stating that “[o]n the constitutional issues discussed in the opinions of my brothers, I find myself in agreement with the dissenting opinion of Justice Reardon.” There were thus three members of the court, Reardon, Quirico, and Braucher, JJ., who, in O’Neal II, adhered to the position that under the Constitution of this Commonwealth the General Court still has the power which it has at all times heretofore possessed to mandate, as matter of legislative judgment and policy, that the penalty for the crime of rape-murder shall be death.