Court Opinion

ID: 9568345
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:02:49.663528+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:24:39.154054
License: Public Domain

Gunter, Justice
dissenting.
I dissent from the judgment of the court on the ground that Georgia’s current statutes permitting the imposition of the death penalty violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States *256Constitution pursuant to the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238 (92 SC 2726, 33 LE2d 346) (1972). See the concurring part of my concurring and dissenting opinion in Coley v. State, 231 Ga. 829 (1973).
Since it is my view that at the beginning of the trial of this case in the trial court, the death penalty could not be constitutionally imposed, it was error to exclude jurors for cause who were opposed to the imposition of the death penalty. If my position, that the death penalty cannot be constitutionally imposed pursuant to Georgia’s current statutes, is correct then the exclusion of such jurors for cause militated against the right of the accused to have a representative cross section of the community population determine his guilt or innocence, irrespective of the punishment to be imposed in the event of guilt. If my view that the death penalty could not be imposed in this case is correct, then exclusion of the jurors for cause was erroneous, and such exclusion would require the grant of a new trial. See Peters v. Kiff, 407 U. S. 493 (92 SC 2163, 33 LE2d 83) (1972), and Prof. White’s law review article, The Constitutional Invalidity of Convictions Imposed by Death-Qualified Juries, 58 Cornell L. Rev. 1176 (July, 1973).
I respectfully dissent.