Court Opinion

ID: 9849042
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:33:36.956671+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:57.775939
License: Public Domain

Legge, Justice
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
Otherwise in full accord with the leading opinion, by Moss, J., I cannot escape the conclusion that the Trial Judge erred in refusing to instruct the jury, as requested by defendant’s counsel, with regard to their unrestricted power to recommend mercy, and that because of such error a new trial should be ordered.
*470Review of the legislative enactments hereinafter referred to, and of the decisions of this court interpreting them discloses substantial change, over a long period of years, in public policy with respect to enforcement of the death penalty in cases of murder, rape, arson, and burglary.
As pointed out in State v. Green, 220 S. C. 315, 67 S. E. (2d) 509, recommendation to mercy by the jury has always been sanctioned in this state; but in the absence of statute such recommendation is merely advisory, constituting no part of the verdict and imposing no obligation upon the Trial Judge to heed it. Thus impotent was such a recommendation in State v. Gill (1880), 14 S. C. 410, and also in State v. Bennett (1893), 40 S. C. 308, 18 S. E. 886. The last mentioned case no doubt influenced passage by the legislature, in 1894, of the Act (21 Stat. at L. 785), now part of Section 16-52 of the 1952 Code, which declared that if, upon conviction of murder, the jury by special verdict recommend the defendant to the mercy of the court, the punishment “shall be reduced to imprisonment in the penitentiary with hard labor during the whole lifetime of the prisoner.”
By the old English statute of 13 Edward I, chapter 34, enacted in the year 1285, the crime of rape was punishable by death. That statute having been declared by Act of the Assembly of the Province of South Carolina ratified December 12, 1712, to be of force in said province, rape presumably remained a capital offense in this state until the Act of February 4, 1869, 14 Stat. at L. 175, which abolished capital punishment except in case of “willful murder” and made the crimes of rape and arson punishable “by hard labor in the Penitentiary for life, or for a period not less than ten years, according to the aggravation of these offenses.” Cf. State v. Whitener, 228 S. C. 244, 89 S. E. (2d) 701.
In 1878, 16 Stat. at L. 631, rape and arson were again made capital offenses, with the provision that if the jury by special verdict recommend the prisoner to the mercy of *471the court the punishment “shall be reduced to imprisonment in the Penitentiary with hard labor during the whole lifetime of the prisoner.” That Act also declared burglary punishable by life imprisonment at hard labor, with no provision for reduction of sentence in the event, that the jury should recommend mercy.
The later Act of December 19, 1883, 18 Stat. at L. 290, provided that if, upon conviction of arson, the jury recommend mercy, the punishment “shall be reduced to imprisonment in the Penitentiary, with hard labor, for a term of not less than ten years.” It also provided that if, upon conviction of burglary, the jury recommend mercy, the punishment “shall be reduced to imprisonment in the penitentiary at hard labor for a term of not less than five years.” Code 1952, Section 16-331.
The Act of March 3, 1928, 35 Stat. at L. 1226, changed the punishment for arson to imprisonment in the Penitentiary for not less than two nor more than twenty years. It made no provision for reduction of sentence in the event that the jury should recommend mercy. Code 1952, Section 16-311.
Since the Act of March 3, 1909, 26 Stat. at L. 206, the effect of the jury’s recommendation to mercy upon conviction of rape, or of assault with intent to ravish (which was for the first time made a capital crime), has been to reduce the punishment from death to confinement at hard labor in the Penitentiary for not more than forty nor less than five years, at the discretion of the presiding judge. Code 1952, Section 16-72.
It will be observed from the legislation before mentioned that of the crimes of murder, rape, arson and burglary, all of which were punishable at common law by death, only murder and rape and, (since the 1909 Act, assault with intent to ravish) now remain capital offenses in this state. The maximum penalty for burglary is now life imprisonment; the punishment for arson is now left to the discretion of the *472Trial Judge within the wide limits of two and twenty years. No less significant than the reduction of the number of capital offenses is the delegation by the legislature to the jury, in cases of murder, rape, assault with intent to ravish, and burglary, of certain power of clemency — a prerogative historically reserved for the executive.branch of government.
Illustrative of the force now accorded to the jury’s recommendation to mercy, even where the result of such recommendation is not specifically defined in the statute, is State v. Kimbrough, 212 S. C. 348, 46 S. E. (2d) 273. In that case the jury found the defendant guilty of burglary and recommended him to the mercy of the court. As before noted, the statute, now Section 16-331, provided that upon such recommendation the punishment should be reduced from life imprisonment to imprisonment for a term of “not less than five years.” The defendant, sentenced to imprisonment for thirty years, appealed upon the ground that such sentence was manifestly excessive. A majority of this court, guided by the rule that it had no jurisdiction to set aside, upon the ground of excessiveness, a sentence within the discretionary limits prescribed by law, at first affirmed; but upon rehearing it was unanimously agreed that the sentence imposed was manifestly excessive, there being nothing in the record to justify the trial court’s disregard of the jury’s recommendation, and the case was accordingly remanded for resentencing. To quote briefly from the opinion:
“* * * Under this statute, the recommendation of the jury is an important part of the verdict. The jury is required to not only determine the guilt of the accused but under this statute is permitted to some extent to pass upon the turpitude of the crime. To have a jury bring in a verdict recommending mercy on the strength of a charge that it may do so and thereby reduce the punishment from life to a term of years and then have the judge to disregard that verdict, would certainly appear illogical. It would tend to shake and weaken the confidence of the juries in the courts.”
*473In State v. Bethune (1910), 86 S. C. 143, 67 S. E. 466, the trial judge charged the jury in substance that, although the statute did not limit its power to recommend mercy, the exercise of that power must be based upon the “circumstances of the case” — in other words, upon the jury’s view of the evidence. On appeal it was contended that this charge was erroneous in that it placed a limitation, not intended by the legislature, upon the power of the jury to recommend mercy. But this court held that there was no error. Declaring that “it would have been better if the court had simply called the jury’s attention to the terms of the statute, and left the matter with them without further remark”, it went on to say: “Still we do not think that the Legislature meant that the power to recommend to mercy should be exercised arbitrarily or capriciously, or without regard to some circumstances in the case.”
In State v. Bates (1911), 87 S. C. 431, 69 S. E. 1075, this court held that there was no error in a charge that the jury “must take all these facts and circumstances together and see if, in your judgment as jurors, this is a case for recommendation to mercy.”
In State v. King (1929), 158 S. C. 251, 155 S. E. 409, this court, in the course of its discussion of the jury’s power under the statute to recommend mercy upon conviction of murder, said: “It is clear that under its terms a jury may, for any reason * * * appearing to them, refuse to have the accused put to death, but may spare his life. The proper charge to be given as to this statute is for the presiding judge to simply inform the jury that under its provisions they may recommend the defendant to the mercy of the court, and that the effect of such recommendation will be to save the accused from death, and cause him to be sentenced for lifetime imprisonment at hard labor.” I do not regard as conclusive of the issue now before us the sentence last quoted above. The question in the King case (which this court resolved in the affirmative) was whether the trial judge had committed error in repeatedly stating to the jury that they *474had nothing to do with mercy and ifi further telling them some of the instances in which they should recommend mercy.
In State v. Blakely (1929), 158 S. C. 304, 155 S. E. 408, conviction of murder, without recommendation, was reversed upon the single ground that the trial judge had erred in stating to the jury that they had “mighty little to do with mercy” and in further stating to them circumstances that would justify their recommending mercy. State v. King, supra, was referred to as having decided “the identical questions”.
The view expressed in State v. Bethune, supra, and State v. Bates, supra, that the jury must found its recommendation to mercy upon the facts and circumstances of the case, was repudiated in State v. Jones (1942), 201 S. C. 403, 23 S. E. (2d) 387, where Acting Associate Justice Lide, speaking for the court, said:
“We need not stop to consider whether these cases might be' distinguished from the case at bar, but in order that there may be no misunderstanding we desire to say that in so far as the Bethune and Bates cases may be construed to limit or qualify the rule later laid down as above quoted they were in effect superseded and overruled by the decisions of this Court in the cases of State v. King, supra, and State v. Blakely, supra. We believe it was manifestly the wise intent of the statute that the full responsibility for recommendation to mercy in murder cases and thus reducing the sentence from death to life imprisonment was placed upon the jury rather than upon the presiding Judge, and their discretion in the matter is an unlimited one.”
It is true that in the Jones case Acting Associate Justice Lide declared that the statement in the King case (to the effect that the proper charge on the statute is for the presiding judge simply to inform the jury that under its provisions they may' recommend mercy and that such recommendation would effect reduction of the sentence to life imprisonment) *475was "a dear, succinct and correct statement of the rule prescribed by this Court and to be followed by trial Judges in murder cases”. But in Jones, as in King, the issue before the court was not that with which we are presently concerned. In Jones, it was whether the trial judge had erred in charging the jury, in effect, that if the evidence should not be sufficient to warrant them in extending mercy, their recommendation to mercy would amount to a violation of their oath as jurors.
So also in State v. Chasteen (1955), 228 S. C. 88, 88 S. E. (2d) 880, the issue now before us was not involved, this court approving the trial judge’s refusal to charge, at the request of defendant’s counsel, that if the jury should conclude that he was guilty of murder, but should have a reasonable doubt as to whether or not they should recommend mercy, they would be required, under the law, to resolve such doubt in his favor and recommend him to the mercy of the court. We there reiterated the rule that “a recommendation to mercy rests entirely in the discretion of the jury and may be exercised independently of whether the evidence warrants it.”
Nor was the present issue involved in State v. Daniels (1957), 231 S. C. 176, 97 S. E. (2d) 902, a rape case, in which we approved a charge that “in any capital case * * * the Jury * * * may, for any reason in the world or for no reason in the world, except that it wants to do so, attach a recommendation to the mercy of the Court to its verdict and thereby avoid the death penalty.”
That reluctance to inflict the death penalty except in extreme cases has replaced the inflexible rules of the common law in this state is apparent from the legislative enactments, and. their judicial interpretation, before mentioned. This court, too, has over many years evidenced a like policy apart from construction of statutes, under the now invariable rule that in death cases it will not confine its inquiry to issues raised before the trial court, but will itself search the record *476for any error affecting the substantial rights of the appellant although not made a ground of appeal.
The question squarely facing us for the first time is whether, in a rape case, the bare reading of Section 16-72 of the Code sufficiently and properly instructs the jury as to their power under it to recommend mercy. In my opinion that question should be answered in the negative, for the following reasons:
1. The provisions in the 1909 Act, now included in Section 16-72, giving to the jury power to recommend mercy upon conviction of rape and thereby to avoid the death penalty, substantially changed the punishment for that crime. It is therefore of vital importance to the accused that the jury be charged as to its power under that statute, for it is a part of the law peculiarly applicable in a death case. The accused has no right whatever to such recommendation; he has a substantial right, under Article V, Section 26 of the Constitution of 1895, to have the jury instructed as to the meaning of that statute.
2. The meaning of this statutory provision cannot be fairly and adequately imparted by merely reading it. Essential to its understanding is its interpretation by this court, not reached until after the Bethune and Bates cases, but now firmly settled and an integral part of the statute, viz: that the jury’s power to recommend mercy is not dependent upon its view of the facts and circumstances revealed by the evidence, but is absolute, unlimited, and not subject to review.
3. Every conclusion by a jury, other than that with respect to recommendation to mercy, is required by law and by the juror’s oath to be based upon the evidence or lack of it. In the absence of instruction as to that distinction, I am convinced of the likelihood that the average juror would think that his power to recommend mercy is limited to considerations arising from the evidence. The distinction is a vital one, and in my opinion, the trial judge’s refusal to point it out deprived the defendant of a substantial right under Article V, Section 26.
*477Whether or not in a capital case error in failing to charge that the jury’s power to recommend mercy is absolute may be waived by counsel’s failure to request such instruction is not in issue here; in the instant case the request was made. But I suggest that the dictum in the majority opinion in State v. Adams, 68 S. C. 421, 47 S. E. 676, to the effect that the right to a charge on the statute may be so waived in a capital case is not consonant with the now settled rule in favorem vitae, and that its approval in State v. Jamison, 221 S. C. 312, 70 S. E. (2d) 342, is not important here because in Jamison the jury did recommend mercy and the death penalty was therefore not involved in the appeal.
A majority of the court concurring in the result of the foregoing opinion, the judgment below is reversed and the case is remanded for a new trial.
Reversed and remanded.
Oxner, J., concurs in result.