Court Opinion

ID: 9772411
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:16:55.776948+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:43.880916
License: Public Domain

HOWELL, Justice,
dissenting.
The heart of the constitutional infirmity in the statute under attack, TEX.CODE CRIM.PROC.ANN. art. 37.07, § 4 (Vernon Supp.1986), is that it has, without rational basis, ordained that every criminal jury to sit in judgment upon a fellow human be provided with the precise tools that are needed to offset the clemency laws.
If there were a legitimate need for jurors to have these tools in hand, the statute might survive the challenge leveled at it by this appellant and by others similarly situated. However, the statute on its face admits the lack of any legitimate need to arm a criminal jury with this information for the statute itself requires a trial court, after charging a jury upon the provisions of the clemency laws, to further charge the jury, in effect: “Now that you have been advised of the particulars of the clemency laws, disregard them.”
The incongruity astounds. How can a statute possess social utility when it mandates the giving of a charge which must be disregarded? The offending statute contains a built-in legislative admission that the very information which it requires to be delivered to every criminal jury is wholly unnecessary to enable that jury to carry out its constitutional function.
The legislative admission of irrelevance is reinforced by the legislative history quoted by the majority (slip op. at 11). Was the statute really adopted to quell “outcry from public citizens serving as jurors”? Public outcry is the law of the lynch mob. Constitutional law is the bulwark that substitutes due process for public outcry.
Of course, if the underlying concern of jurors and citizens, as expressed (i.e., that prisoners are not serving a sufficient part of the sentences imposed) has validity, the Legislature has ample power under the Constitution to address that evil. Reduce good time credits! Those credits are fixed by statute and they may be enlarged or reduced, almost without limit, by the very body politic which promulgated them. Likewise, with parole eligiblity minimums. If they are too low, increase them!!
Assume that the problem really exists and that prisoners are not serving a sufficient part of their sentences. Assume that the majority is correct in its child-like declaration of faith in the proposition that every jury will inevitably perform exactly as instructed. It follows that the Legislature has addressed the problem in a wholly irrational manner because it has decreed that juries be instructed to disregard the problem; and, assuming fidelity to those instructions, the problem has been left wholly unresolved. The Legislature has heeded the clamor of the mob; it has cast an ineffectual placebo into the public arena; it has quelled the outcry but avoided an effective solution; it has committed legislative cowardice.
Assume on the other hand that Justice Whitham is correct in his dissenting proposition that juries are composed of fallible humans, that the statute contains an insidious invitation to offset the clemency laws, and that certain juries and certain jurors will heed that invitation and mete out increased sentences; the inevitable result is that those defendants tried before juries who are mindful of their instructions will escape proper punishment. Only those *851who are punished by juries that refuse to heed the instruction to disregard the mandatory charge upon the clemency laws will receive an adequate sentence.
Another hypothesis predicates that the existing statutory scheme of clemency laws is just and the administration thereof by the Board of Pardons and Paroles has been proper. As a matter of fact, there is a strong presumption to this effect until the contrary be shown. In such instance, the parole instruction statute here under challenge possesses the clear tendency to visit excessive punishment upon the accused wherever the admonition to disregard is not heeded. Under any hypothesis, the irrationality of the statute cannot be escaped.
Of course, the Legislature has the power to adopt clemency laws and to regulate the actions of the Board of Pardons and Paroles. However, the power to regulate does not encompass the power to abolish because that agency is a creature of the Constitution. Likewise, within limits the legislative power exists to regulate the courts and to fix the attributes of a criminal trial. However, in this entire area of regulation, the Legislature may not act in an arbitrary or irrational manner because it is creating restrictions upon the most basic of all freedoms — human liberty.
One power which the Legislature may not deny to the Board is the power to exercise its discretion — to apply the law to the facts of a specific case. Assume that the Board, in the exercise of its discretion, denies parole to a prisoner of some notoriety. May the Legislature thereafter adopt a statute declaring that John Henry Jones is hereby placed upon parole? Would the statute not be a gross invasion of the separation of powers — a direct usurpation of the Board’s most fundamental function, the exercise of discretion, the application of the law to the specific case?
That which may not be done directly may not be done indirectly. The statute under attack contains a legislative decree that juries shall be provided with tools that are specifically designed to invade the discretion of the Board. The fact that juries are to be admonished not to use those tools does not obscure the fact that the tools are being furnished. The opportunity and the means to offset the clemency laws is being placed before every criminal jury in this state. It matters little whether or not the overwhelming majority of jurors will resist the obvious temptation to add a little extra to the sentence “to make sure that the defendant doesn’t , get out too soon.” The mischievous element of the statute — temptation — still persists. The mere fact that juries are being equipped with tools adequate to interfere with the discretion of the Board, coupled with the ever-present element of human temptation, particularly in view of the fact that juries have no significant need for such tools, constitutes a direct invasion of the constitutionally separate powers of the Board of Pardons and Paroles.
I dissent for the reasons expressed in the opinion of Justice Whitham and for the further reasons expressed herein. The statute must fall. The case must be reversed and remanded for new trial.