Court Opinion

ID: 9606536
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:50:42.518864+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:21.173845
License: Public Domain

LUMPKIN, Presiding Judge:
concurring in part/dissenting in part.
I concur in this Court’s determination the convictions for murder, kidnapping, arson and larceny of an automobile should be affirmed; and the convictions for robbery with firearms should be reversed. I dissent to the Court’s determination the case should be remanded for resentencing, using the life-without-parole option.
This Court in its holding cites “principals [sic] of fundamental fairness” in reversing for a new second-stage trial. Ante at 753. This puts me in a quandary, for how does one dissent to principles of fundamental fairness? This quandary, however, shows precisely why use of this equitable principle cannot serve as the basis for a ruling of law. As was said over a century ago:
Equity is a Roguish thing: for Law we have a measure, know what to trust to, Equity is according to the Conscience of him that is Chancellor, and as that is larger or narrower, so is Equity. ’Tis all one as if they should make the Standard for the measure, we call, a Chancellor’s Foot, what an uncertain measure would *754this be? One Chancellor has a long Foot, another a short Foot, a third an indifferent Foot. ’Tis the same thing in the Chancellor’s Conscience.
Seldon, John, Equity Table-Talk (Arber, Edward, ed. in English Reprints, nos. 1-7, London: 1869) at 46. What is “fundamental fairness” to one judge may not be “fundamental fairness” to another.
“Fairness” in the law as applied in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, demands, among other things, fair notice of the nature of the prohibitive acts. Capler v. City of Greenville, Miss., 298 F.Supp. 295, 298 (N.D.Miss.1969), aff'd, 422 F.2d 299 (5th Cir.1970). Here, Appellant received that “fairness”: he knew the punishment for first degree murder at the time he committed it was either life in prison or death.
The majority cites Allen v. State, 821 P.2d 371 (Okl.Cr.1991) for the proposition there is no constitutional infirmity in the application of the life-without-parole option to a murder which occurred before that punishment option went into effect. Allen is discussed more fully below. But first, I will show jurisprudence covering nearly nine decades proves the majority of this Court is simply wrong, both here and in its previous analysis.
Our most recent decision dealing with the subject of retroactive application of punishment is Bowman v. State, 789 P.2d 631 (Okl.Cr.1990). In Bowman, we stated with clarity that “the appropriate criminal penalty is the penalty in effect at the time the defendant commits the crime.” Id. at 631 (citing Penn v. State, 13 Okl.Cr. 367, 164 P. 992 (1917) and Alberty v. State 10 Okl.Cr. 616, 140 P. 1025 (1914)). Federal courts repeatedly apply this basic principle of law. In United States v. Towne, 870 F.2d 880 (2d Cir.1989), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1101, 109 S.Ct. 2456, 104 L.Ed.2d 1010 (1989), the Second Circuit found that the repeal of a statute prior to the defendant’s being sentenced was inapposite because the statute was in effect at the time the underlying offenses were committed and at the time the defendant was convicted. Id. at 887. See also Burge v. Butler, 867 F.2d 247, 250 (5th Cir.1989).
In addition, a review of our jurisprudence reveals this principle was part of the legal foundation laid at statehood. One of the first cases was Sharp v. State, 3 Okl.Cr. 24, 104 P. 71 (1909). The defendant there committed an offense while Indian Territory was governed by the laws of the state of Arkansas. The defendant did not go to trial until after Oklahoma had become a state and enacted its statutes. The question before the Court was whether the laws of Arkansas or Oklahoma should be applied. The Court determined that application of the laws of the state of Oklahoma would seriously harm the defendant and the only choice was to use the laws which controlled at the time of the offense. Relying on a United States Supreme Court case, Kring v. Missouri, 107 U.S. 221, 2 S.Ct. 443, 27 L.Ed. 506 (1883), the Oklahoma Court stated: “[t]he accused should be tried and dealt with under the law as it existed at the time of the commission of the crime of which he stands charged.” Sharp, 3 Okl.Cr. at 31, 104 P. at 74. The Court reiterated this principle in Bowman when it determined that the sentence of ten years to life was proper because “[i]t is a well established rule of law that the appropriate criminal penalty is the penalty in effect at the time the defendant commits the crime.” Bowman, 789 P.2d at 631. See also Freshour v. Turner, 496 P.2d 389, 392 (Okl.Cr.1972) (defendant, seventeen at time of offense, not entitled to benefit of a subsequently enacted bill which defined the term “child” as any person under the age of eighteen; because language in the enactment did not show it was to be applied retroactively, the law may be applied prospectively only); Jones v. State, 3 Okl.Cr. 593, 107 P. 738 (1910). The irony of the Court’s attempt to apply “fairness” in this case is revealed by our decision in Costa v. State, 753 P.2d 393 (Okl.Cr.1986). In that case, the trial judge sentenced the defendant to life without parole, which was not a sentencing option at the time of the crime. Finding that the trial judge committed error with sentencing, this Court did not remand for sentencing, but struck the “without parole” portion of the sentence and remanded for the trial court to correct the error. Id. at 395.
*755Legal nuances of this type lead to an anomaly of the law. The anomaly then skews the principles of law which are to be applied and creates serious cracks in the foundation of our jurisprudence. In addition, it denigrates the principle that this is a nation of laws, and not of men.
This Court, in its analysis, alludes to the observation that “death is different.” While the final nature of the death penalty may result in a more microscopic review of the facts of a case, it does not change basic principles of the application of a rule of law, or the manner of consistently applying the law. The basis of the United States Supreme Court’s overturning the application of the death penalty in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972), was there must be a consistent application of the law, and that the vague, arbitrary applications of the penalty be removed. That concept of consistency in the application of legal principles must be applied fairly to all aspects of the review in a criminal case, whether it applies to the State or a defendant. For the Court to do otherwise creates aberrations in the law which impede the orderly, consistent application of that law in the trial courts of this State.
The actions of the Court in this case, pursuant to some type of “fairness” review, disregard the facts of the case. The Appellant neither objected to the instructions given nor requested an instruction on this optional punishment. This Court should never take the position of trying to reinvent the trial strategy of an appellant’s attorney in a trial. Trial judges are vested with a dual role of being fair and applying the law under the appropriate circumstance. The role of an appellate judge is to apply the law consistently and to ensure the rules of law are set forth to enable trial practitioners and trial judges to rely on those principles of law in the trial of cases. While procedural aspects may be declared to be applicable retroactively, pursuant to 22 O.S.1991, § 3, substantive amendments of the penal statute cannot. The procedure for conducting a resentencing proceeding is substantially different than an application of the penal provisions of the statutes based on when the crime was committed. The Court’s analysis of a substantive provision skews the rules which apply to the retroactive effect of procedural matters.
It is in this vein that Allen v. State, 821 P.2d 371 (Okl.Cr.1991) was incorrectly decided. For whatever reason, this Court allowed itself to get sidetracked on an ex post facto question. Every second-year law student knows, when dealing with an ex post facto application, we by definition of the term necessarily assume the statute in question is intended to be applied retroactively. I fear the Court has confused two entirely different principles of law. The question here, and the core of this dissent, is not whether it is constitutionally permissible to apply a law retroactively, but whether the law was meant to be applied retroactively at all.
This above discussion and stare decisis clearly show that assumption makes Allen intellectually infirm. But even if this Court decides to throw out the combined jurisprudence of this Court since Statehood on the issue, it cannot overlook its own ruling in Wade v. State, 825 P.2d 1357, 1363 (Okl.Cr.1992), which held the option of life without parole would not be available if it were not requested by the defendant at trial. Here, the option was not requested; yet this Court would reverse the sentence despite its own more recent case.
Before Allen the law was clear: the punishment to be applied was the one in effect at the time the crime was committed. Allen created confusion where before there was none. Wade nurtured that confusion. But through the fog, a trial court could at least count on one thing: if the option were requested, it would be given; if not, it would not be error on appeal. Now this Court seeks to throw out even that murky pronouncement. Confusion and inconsistency make poor bedfellows — especially in a capital murder case, which will be litigated for years to come.
“Principles of fundamental fairness” is an easy solution to the problem this Court has created by ignoring its own caselaw in determining “death is different.” And as with many easy solutions, it is neat, plausible — and wrong. I cannot agree the doctrines of this Court are to be changed with *756every succeeding judge, and cannot join in an opinion that in some vague rush to “fairness” varies the law to be applied in such a manner that it is no more consistent than a Chancellor’s foot.
I respectfully dissent.