Court Opinion

ID: 9749970
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 14:09:12.478494+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:00.858593
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Musmanno:
■I have always maintained that it is unfair to hang the client because of the fault of the attorney, and I still so maintain. The Majority Opinion states that the improper statement made by a witness, as to a homicide other than the one for which the defendant was being tried, , “was invited by Bell’s counsel and he cannot now complain about that for which he was res*298ponsible.” Do tbe two “he’s” in tbis sentence refer to the defendant Bell or to bis defense lawyer? If tbey refer to tbe defendant, it certainly is not bis fault if tbe attorney used bad judgment. If tbe two “he’s” refer to tbe attorney, tbe ruling of tbe Majority is even worse because it is not tbe attorney who is going to tbe electric chair but tbe defendant. Whatever tbe attorney complains about, is advanced in favor of tbe client, so that it is absurd to say that tbe attorney is “responsible” for tbe error. For tbe attorney, tbis is only another case, but for tbe defendant it is bis only life.
I dissent for another reason. Tbe so-called “Split Yerdict” Act of December 1, 1959, was never intended to make of tbe jury a conclave of St. Peters, to decide whether a defendant should live or die on tbe basis of all tbe sins in bis life, including those which happened after tbe only offense for which be is on trial. Tbe Act of 1959 was intended to leave to tbe jury whether, after finding tbe defendant guilty of murder in tbe first degree for one specific homicide, tbey believe, in their best judgment and according to their conscience, tbe punishment should be life imprisonment or death. Bell was tried for only one murder, tbe Rosenberg murder. Tbe Majority in its opinion speaks as if be bad also at some time been found guilty of murder in tbe Kanal homicide. Tbis, of course, is not so. Bell’s admission of “participation in tbe Kanal homicide” did not make him guilty of tbe Kanal killing. It is hornbook law that a confession, without other corroborating evidence, is worthless in tbe establishing of guilt. Thus, tbe jury were allowed to pass on tbe life of tbe defendant, not because be killed one man, but because he killed two men. And there was no proof at all that be killed a second man,
Going back to tbe error of allowing a reference to tbe Kanal homicide during tbe trial on tbe Rosenberg murder, tbe Majority says that “if these admissions *299were correctly admitted at this stage of the proceedings [that is, after the jury’s verdict of guilty on the Bosenberg murder], the reference to the Banal homicide during the first stage of the trial was of little moment.” This is strange logic indeed. The fact that the error was repeated a second time does not wipe out the first error. Who can say that the jury was not prejudiced against the defendant in finding him guilty of the Bosenberg murder, when they were informed, while considering him only for the Bosenberg murder, that he had also participated in the killing of still another man, Banal?
It becomes more and more of a perplexity to me why prosecuting officials insist on jeopardizing a perfectly good case, by introducing irrelevant evidence. It is equally an enigma why a presiding judge, when improper evidence, of a serious and grave character (as the reference to the Banal homicide unquestionably was), is introduced, does not declare a mistrial right then and there. And start de novo. As horrible as was the initial crime in this case, it does not help society to deny the defendant due process of law and to let him go to his death with a hovering doubt as to whether he was not denied the fair trial, which our institutions, our laws, and our Constitutional guarantees demand.