Court Opinion

ID: 9431066
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:31:16.210065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:26.918659
License: Public Domain

*86Justice White,
with whom
The Chief Justice and Justice Scalia join, dissenting.
Today the Court holds that the Eighth Amendment prohibits a State from imposing a mandatory death sentence on a prisoner who, while serving a life term for a first-degree murder conviction, murders a fellow inmate. The Court reasons that the Constitution requires that such an inmate be afforded the opportunity to present mitigating evidence to the sentencer, and, in so reasoning, quite obviously assumes that cases will arise under the type of statute at issue here in which an inmate will be able, through the presentation of such mitigating evidence, to persuade a sentencer not to impose a death sentence. In my view, the Constitution does not bar a state legislature from determining, in this limited class of cases, that, as a matter of law, no amount of mitigating evidence could ever be sufficient to outweigh the aggravating factors that characterize a first-degree murder committed by one who is already incarcerated for committing a previous murder and serving a life sentence. Accordingly, I dissent.
I dissented from the decisions holding that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the mandatory death-sentencing schemes involved in those cases. Roberts (Stanislaus) v. Louisiana, 428 U. S. 325, 358-363 (1976) (White, J., joined by Burger, C. J., Blackmun and Rehnquist, JJ., dissenting); Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280, 306-307 (1976). But even if those decisions are accepted opinions, neither they nor the other cases requiring individualized sentencing for capital defendants compel the result the Court reaches today. Indeed, thé Court has expressly and repeatedly reserved the issue addressed in this case, see Roberts (Stanislaus) v. Louisiana, supra, at 334, n. 9; Rob*87erts (Harry) v. Louisiana, 431 U. S. 633, 637, n. 5 (1977); Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586, 604, n. 11 (1978); McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U. S. 279, 304, n. 26 (1987), signaling rather clearly that the rationale underpinning the individualized sentencing requirement does not inexorably lead to a conclusion that mandatory death-sentencing schemes of the type involved here offend the Constitution. Until today, the Court has never held that the Constitution prohibits a State from identifying an especially aggravated and exceedingly narrow category of first-degree murder, such as the crime for which respondent stands convicted, and determining as a matter of law and social policy that no combination of mitigating factors, short of an actual defense to the crime charged, could ever warrant reduction of a sentence of death. I thus do not accept the majority’s assertion that “[t]he fact that a life-term inmate is convicted of murder does not reflect whether any circumstance existed at the time of the murder that may have lessened his responsibility for his acts even though it could not stand as a legal defense to the murder charge.” Ante, at 78-79. An inmate serving a life sentence who is convicted of capital murder and who is legally responsible for his actions, that is, one who does not have a meritorious defense recognized as relieving the inmate of such responsibility, has, in my view, no constitutional right to persuade the sentencer to impose essentially no punishment at all for taking the life of another, whether guard or inmate.
I also reject the majority’s assertion that this kind of mandatory capital-sentencing scheme is not necessary as a deterrent because the inmate who commits capital murder is still subject to the death penalty for that crime. See ante, at 82-83. But the majority holds that all inmates serving life sentences who commit capital murder must have the opportunity to persuade the sentencers that the death penalty should not be imposed. Moreover, the assumption is that some of them will succeed, thereby inevitably lessening the deterrent effect of the death penalty. As I see it, a State does not vio*88late the Eighth Amendment by maintaining the full deterrent effect of the death penalty in this kind of case and by insisting that those who murder while serving a life sentence without parole not be able to escape punishment for that crime.