Court Opinion

ID: 7811630
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-07 17:13:29.795652+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:30:29.301871
License: Public Domain

Hart, J., (on rehearing.). Counsel for appellant contends that, inasmuch as the statute gives the jury an alternative right to fix the punishment in capital cases at death or life imprisonment in the State Penitentiary, the court erred in not charging the jury with respect to the punishment. In this contention we think counsel are correct, and that the motion for a rehearing should be granted. It is true that this court has set its face against errors which do not affect the merits, but in a capital case justice requires that the jury be told what duties the statute devolves upon it to perform in the way of fixing the punishment of the accused, provided he is found guilty. •Sec. 3205 of Crawford & Moses’ Digest provides that the jury shall, in all cases of murder, on conviction of the accused, find by their verdict whether he is guilty of murder in the first or second degree. Sec. 3206 provides that the jury shall have the right, in all cases where the punishment is now death by law, to render a verdict of life imprisonment in the State Penitentiary at hard labor. The statute provides that the jury, and not the court, shall have the right to fix the punishment, and it follows that, under such a statute, it is necessary to inform the jury of the punishment imposed by the statute in order that it may properly exercise the right vested in it. If the court Md\ explained to the jury the distinction and difference of penalty of murder in the first degree, the. finding of th,e (j'ury might have been different. By not telling the jury that it had a right to fix the punishment of the defendant at life imprisonment, the latter was deprived of a substantial right. The right to exercise the discretion under the statute was given to the jury, and the court could not exercise it. We think this holding is in accord with the rule laid down in Winkler v. State, 32 Ark. 539. The reason for the rule in such cases is clearly expressed by Mr. Justice Harlan in Colton v. Utah, 130 U. S. 83, as follows: “Without such recommendation the court, in the absence of sufficient grounds for a new trial, has no alternative but to sentence the accused to suffer death. While in this case the jury were instructed as to what constituted murder in the first and second degrees, they were not informed as to their right, under the statute, to recommend imprisonment for life at hard labor in the penitentiary in place of punishment of death. If their attention had been called to that statute, it may be that they would have made such a recommendation, and thereby enabled the court to reduce the punishment to imprisonment for life. We are of the opinion that the court erred in not directing the attention of the jury to this matter. The statute evidently proceeds upon the ground that there may be cases of murder in the first degree, the punishment for which by imprisonment for life at hard labor will suffice to meet the ends of public justice. Its object could only have been met through a recommendation by the jury that the lesser punishment be inflicted, and it is not to be presumed that they were aware of their right to make such recommendation. The failure of the court to instruct them upon this point prevented it from imposing the punishment of imprisonment for life, even if, in its judgment, the circumstances of the case rendered such a course proper.” So, too, in Blair v. Commonwealth, 7 Bush (Ky.) 227, it was held that the instructions to the jury were prejudicial to the defendant in not submitting to its determination whether, if the defendant was found guilty, his punishment should be death or confinement in the penitentiary. In Cesure v. State, 1 Tex. Ct. of Appeals 19, it was held that on the trial of offenses to which alternative penalties are attached, it is the duty of the district judge, whether asked or not, to give such alternative penalties in the charge to the jury, and that an omission to do so is error. The court said that under such a statute the question of punishment to be inflicted is a matter entirely discretionary with the jury, and is as legitimate a subject of inquiry by them as any other question involved in the case. The court further said that, in failing to give a charge submitting this question to the jury, the trial court committed a material error calculated to injure the rights of the defendant, for which a new trial should have been granted. In Mays v. State, 143 Tenn. 443, 226 S. W. 233, the court had under consideration a statute allowing the jury, upon finding mitigating circumstances, to commute the punishment, upon conviction in capital offenses, to imprisonment for life. The court reaffirmed the rule announced in an earlier case that the language of the act clearly vested in the jury the exclusive power and authority to fix the punishment of defendants in cases where they have been convicted of murder in the first degree. The court further held that the act was mandatory. In the case last cited the State contended that the law fixed the punishment for murder in the first degree at death, except where the jury should find mitigating circumstances, and that therefore, when a simple verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree was rendered by the jury without a finding of mitigating circumstances, the death penalty followed by force of the law, and the act of the trial judge in imposing said penalty was but ministerial. The-court said that, under the act, the jury did not have to make any finding at all of mitigating circumstances in the sense of stating such a finding in their verdict, in order to impose less than the death penalty. The court said further that the matter of punishment within the limits stated was one for the discretion of the jury, and that the jury might reduce the punishment if it was of the opinion that there were mitigating circumstances. The court reaffirmed the rule that the statute committed to the jury the power of assessing the punishment and that this power was exclusive. It was held that a verdict which did not fix the punishment was a nullity, and that no valid punishment could be based thereon. In the present case the finding of the jury might have been different, had the court explained to the jury the alternative right given it by the statute in fixing the punishment of the accused. Therefore, the majority of the court is of the opinion that, the punishment prescribed by the statute being alternative in its character, and the statute having made it the duty of the jury to exercise its discretion in fixing the punishment, it was part of the law applicable to the case, and the trial court erred in not charging the jury in regard to the discretion to be exercised by it in case the accused was found guilty of murder in the first degree. The error can be cured, however, by reducing the punishment of appellant to life imprisonment. The sentence of death for murder in the first degree will be set aside, and the sentence reduced to imprisonment for life in the State Penitentiary at hard labor, unless the Attorney General elects within two weeks to have the judgment reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial. McCulloch, C. J., and Humphreys, J., dissent.