Court Opinion

ID: 9851124
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:07:40.321384+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:49.080742
License: Public Domain

Bobbitt, C.J., and Shaep, J.,
dissenting as to death sentence.
We vote to vacate the judgment imposing the death sentence. In our opinion, the verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree should be upheld and the cause remanded for pronouncement of a judgment imposing a sentence of life imprisonment.
The crime was committed on February 3, 1969, when our statutes relating to capital punishment for murder in the first degree were G.S. 14-17 and G.S. 15-162.1. It was and is our opinion that, until the repeal of G.S. 15-162.1 on March 25, 1969, the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in United States v. Jackson, 390 U.S. 570, 20 L. ed. 2d 138, 88 S. Ct. 1209 (1968), and in Pope v. United States, 392 U.S. 651, 20 L. ed. 2d 1317, 88 S. Ct. 2145 (1968), *620rendered invalid the death penalty provisions of G.S. 14-17. The reasons underlying our opinion have been stated fully in the dissenting: opinions in State v. Spence, 274 N.C. 536, 164 S.E. 2d 593, and in State v. Atkinson, 275 N.C. 288, 167 S.E. 2d 241, and in State v. Hill, 276 N.C. 1, 170 S.E. 2d 885 (1969). See also our dissenting opinion in State v. Roseboro, 276 N.C. 185, 171 S.E. 2d 886. In view of the basis on which the Court’s opinion undertakes to distinguish the provisions of the Federal Kidnapping Act from the provisions' of G.S. 14-17 and G.S. 15-162.1, reference is made to the dissenting opinion in State v. Atkinson, supra, for a discussion in detail of the provisions of the Federal Kidnapping Act considered in United States v. Jackson, supra, and of the Federal Bank Robbery Act considered in Pope v. United States, supra. Repetition is unnecessary.
G.S. 15-162.1 was repealed by Chapter 117, Session Laws of 1969. The 1969 Act, if construed to provide greater punishment for murder in the first degree than the punishment provided therefor when the crime was committed, would, in that respect, be unconstitutional as ex post jacto. 16 Am. Jur. 2d Constitutional Law § 396. In our view, if the death penalty provisions of G.S. 14-17 were invalid on February 3, 1969, when the crime was committed, they were invalid as to this defendant in November, 1969, when he was-tried, convicted and sentenced.