Court Opinion

ID: 9538326
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:34:55.582906+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:44.771358
License: Public Domain

BRETT, Judge,
specially concurring:
I concur and am compelled to expand upon the majority’s treatment of the final assignments of error under Section XIV, supra.
There is a statute more specifically on point, and the rules of statutory construction favor not only that statutes be interpreted consistently with each other but also that specific statutes take precedence over general statutes. See C. D. Sands, Sutherland’s Statutory Construction (4th Ed. 1972), § 51.02, Statutes on the Same Subject Construed Together.
As the majority states, even ordinary criminal trials can result in a judicial verdict of punishment when the jury cannot reach a unanimous punishment verdict. This, however, was a capital case. The question that becomes crucial is: Must the jury’s punishment verdict be unanimous? The answer is compound: Yes, the jury must reach a unanimous determination of the death penalty; and no, the jury is not required to reach a unanimous verdict. The statute provides, “If the jury cannot, within a reasonable time, agree as to punishment, the judge shall dismiss the jury and impose a sentence of imprisonment for life.” Laws 1976, 1st Ex.Sess., Ch. 1, § 5. Now 21 O.S.Supp.1979, § 701.11. [Emphasis added.] An earlier portion of that same section, “The jury, if its verdict be a unanimous recommendation of death, ...” is written in the subjunctive and includes the adjective “unanimous.” Clearly, this anticipates the situation here where the jury returned, after several hours, unable to unanimously assess death. The statutory consequence is that life imprisonment must be imposed by the judge.