Court Opinion

ID: 9426828
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:03.235323+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:03.348170
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
with whom Mr. Justice White and Mr. Justice Rehnquist join, dissenting.
The Court, feeling itself bound by the plurality opinion in Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U. S. 325 (1976) (hereafter Stanislaus Roberts), has painted itself into a corner. I did not join that plurality opinion, and I decline to be so confined. I therefore dissent from the Court’s disposition of the present *639case and from its holding that the mandatory imposition of the death penalty for killing a peace officer, engaged in the performance of his lawful duties, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. I would uphold the State’s power to impose such a punishment under La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 14:30 (2) (1974), and I would reject any statements or intimations to the contrary in the Court’s prior cases.
The per curiam opinion asserts that “the precise question presented in this case was explicitly answered” in Stanislaus Roberts. Ante, at 635. It also relies on the summary disposition of Washington v. Louisiana, 428 U. S. 906 (1976), where a death sentence that had been imposed under § 14:30 (2) was vacated and where it was stated that the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Ante, at 635. Finally, the per curiam states that “it is essential that the capital-sentencing decision allow for consideration of whatever mitigating circumstances may be relevant to either the particular offender or the particular offense.” Ante, at 637. Since § 14:30 (2) does not allow for consideration of mitigating factors, the per curiam strikes down the death sentence imposed on petitioner.
In my view, the question of the constitutionality of Louisiana’s mandatory death penalty for killing a peace officer was not answered in Stanislaus Roberts. Washington may be said to be a summary ruling on the merits, but that case was decided without the benefit of plenary consideration, and without focusing on the identity and activity of the victim. I believe its result to be incorrect as a constitutional matter and I would disapprove and withhold its further application.
Stanislaus Roberts was charged and convicted under a different subsection, that is, § 14:30 (1), of the Louisiana first-degree murder statute. See 428 U. S., at 327. See also ante, at 634^635. Subsection (1) provided a mandatory death penalty in the case where the killer had a specific intent to kill or *640to inflict great bodily harm and was engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of aggravated kidnaping, aggravated rape, or armed robbery. See ante, at 634 n. 1. Subsection (2), in contrast, provides that first-degree murder is committed when the killer has a specific intent to kill, or to inflict great bodily harm upon, a fireman or a peace officer who is engaged in the performance of his lawful duties. Ibid. The two subsections obviously should involve quite different considerations with regard to the lawfulness of a mandatory death penalty, even accepting the analysis set forth in the joint opinions of last Term.* Thus, to the extent that the plurality in Stanislaus Roberts alluded to subsections of the Louisiana law that were not before the Court, those statements are nonbinding dicta. It is indisputable that carefully focused consideration was not given to the special problem of a mandatory death sentence for one who has intentionally killed a police officer engaged in the performance of his lawful duties. I therefore approach this case as a new one, not predetermined and governed by the plurality in Stanislaus Roberts.
Washington may present a different problem. It did decide the issue now before the Court, but it did so without the benefit of full briefing and argument, and it was one of three pending Louisiana cases treated as a cluster and routinely remanded at the Term’s end in the immediate wake of Stanislaus Roberts. Because an explicit finding was made that the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment, perhaps Washington is not to be treated in the same way as summary affirmances were treated in Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 670-671 (1974). I would simply inquire, as to Washington, whether its holding should not be overruled, *641now that the Court has had the benefit of more careful and complete consideration of the issue.
On the merits, for reasons I have expressed before, I would not find § 14:30 (2) constitutionally defective. See Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238, 405-414 (1972) (dissenting opinion). See also Stanislaus Roberts, 428 U. S., at 337-363 (White, J., dissenting). Furthermore, even under the opinions of last Term, I would conclude that § 14:30 (2) falls within that narrow category of homicide for which a mandatory death sentence is constitutional. See Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 186 (1976); Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280, 287 n. 7, 292-293, n. 25 (1976); Stanislaus Roberts, 428 U. S., at 334 n. 9. Since the decision in Washington is inconsistent with this view, I would overrule it.
I should note that I do not read the per curiam opinion today as one deciding the issue of the constitutionality of a mandatory death sentence for a killer of a peace officer for all cases and all times. Reference to the plurality opinion in Stanislaus Roberts reveals that the Louisiana statute contained what that opinion regarded as two fatal defects: lack of an opportunity to consider mitigating factors, and standardless jury discretion inherent in the Louisiana responsive verdict system. Without the latter, as here, a different case surely is presented. Furthermore, it is evident, despite the per curium’s general statement to the contrary, that mitigating factors need not be considered in every case; even the per curiam continues to reserve the issue of a mandatory death sentence for murder by a prisoner already serving a life sentence. Ante, at 637 n. 5. Finally, it is possible that a state statute that required the jury to consider, during the guilt phase of the trial, both the aggravating circumstance of killing a peace officer and relevant mitigating circumstances would pass the plurality’s test. Cf. Jurek v. Texas, 428 U. S. 262, 270-271 (1976). For me, therefore, today’s decision must be viewed in the context of the Court’s previous criticism of the Louisiana system; *642it need not freeze the Court into a position that condemns every statute with a mandatory death penalty for the intentional killing of a peace officer.

Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153 (1976); Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U. S. 242 (1976); Jurek v. Texas, 428 U. S. 262 (1976); Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280 (1976); and Stanislaus Roberts, 428 U. S. 325 (1976).