Court Opinion

ID: 9661844
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:52:41.600629+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:34.418495
License: Public Domain

BARDGETT, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent and concur in the dissenting opinion of Seiler, J. However, I wish to address the nature of our new capital-murder statute because I believe it differs in a substantive way from former murder statutes which permitted the death penalty as one of the punishments and thereby calls for different treatment by this Court.
Capital murder is not treated as two offenses. Nor do I think the dissent of Seiler, J., suggests that it is two offenses.
The old first-degree-murder statute, § 559.010, RSMo 1969, repealed Laws of Mo.1975, p. 408, § A (hereinafter “old capital murder law”) provided:
559.010. Murder in the first degree
Every murder which shall be committed by means of poison, or by lying in wait, or by any other kind of willful, deliberate and premeditated killing, and every homicide which shall be committed in the perpetration or attempt to perpetrate any arson, rape, robbery, burglary or mayhem, shall be deemed murder in the first degree. (Emphasis added.)
The punishment was to be arrived at and assessed in accordance with § 559.030, *920RSMo 1969, repealed Laws of Mo.1975, p. 408, § A, which provided:
559.030. Trials for murder, verdict and punishment
Upon the trial of an indictment for murder in the first degree, the jury must inquire, and by their verdict ascertain, under the instructions of the court, whether the defendant be guilty of murder in the first or second degree; and persons convicted of murder in the first degree shall suffer death, or be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary during their natural lives; those convicted of murder in the second degree shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary not less than ten years. (Emphasis added.)
The new capital-murder statute essentially copied the mental elements of the old capital-murder law, italicized supra, and designated the offense “capital murder” as follows:
565.001. Capital murder defined. Any person who unlawfully, willfully, knowingly, deliberately, and with premeditation kills or causes the killing of another human being is guilty of the offense of capital murder. (L.1977 H.B. 90 § 1). Effective 5-26-77.1
Elaborate procedures now appear in our laws whenever the death penalty is a possible punishment. §§ 565.006, 565.008, 565.-012, 565.014, 565.016, RSMo. 1978. The penalty section itself is § 565.008.1, RSMo 1978, and provides:
565.008. Death penalty, when imposed— life imprisonment, when imposed — minimum of fifty years to be served, when— first and second degree murder, penalties for 1. Persons convicted of the offense of capital murder shall, if the judge or jury so recommends after complying with the provisions of sections 565.006 and 565.012, be punished by death. If the judge or jury does not recommend the imposition of the death penalty on a finding of guilty of capital murder, the convicted person shall be punished by imprisonment by the division of corrections dur- • ing his natural life and shall not be eligible for probation or parole until he has served a minimum of fifty years of his sentence.
One must carefully read the numerous provisions relating to the procedures and required findings provided in the cited statutes to fully appreciate the qualitative difference between our old capital-murder law and the present one. The differences are pointed up however by the case of State v. Tiedt, 360 Mo. 594, 229 S.W.2d 582 (banc 1950), a death-penalty case under our old law, when it is compared with the specific requirements of §§ 565.012.4 and 565.012.5, RSMo 1978.
In Tiedt, a jury found Tiedt guilty of “old” first-degree murder and assessed punishment at death. The only other penalty available was life imprisonment, § 559.030, supra, repealed. On appeal the defendant contended the trial court erred in refusing a certain instruction he tendered which would have told the jury that “ ‘ . . . the law relative to the right to receive the benefit of the doubt as to the severity of punishment’; that, if defendant was guilty of murder in the first degree, ‘he was entitled to the benefit of a reasonable doubt * * as to whether he should be given the death penalty or given a life sentence’; and that the ‘same benefit of reasonable doubt should apply in fixing punishment as well as in determining whether any punishment should be assessed.’ ” Id., 229 S.W.2d 585-6.
This Court held at 586, of 229 S.W.2d: “The instruction was properly refused. If, under the evidence and instructions of the court, the jury found defendant guilty of murder in the first degree, it was for the jury to fix the punishment. The matter of *921punishment, within the limits fixed by the statute, was solely within the discretion of the jury under all of the facts and circumstances in evidence. Secs. 4378, 4092, R.S. 1939, Mo.R.S.A.; State v. Bevins, 328 Mo. 1046, 43 S.W.2d 432, 434; State v. Creighton, 330 Mo. 1176, 52 S.W.2d 556, 563; Ex parte Dusenberry, 97 Mo. 504, 11 S.W. 217. No question of reasonable doubt was involved in the matter of assessing the punishment. People v. Krauser, 315 Ill. 485, 146 N.E. 593, 605.” (Emphasis added.)
The concept set forth in Tiedt that the death penalty could be validly imposed without any standards or directions was again approved in State v. Coleman, 460 S.W.2d 719 (Mo. banc 1970). But it was precisely this “unbridled discretion” which caused the Supreme Court of the United States to declare this procedure unconstitutional in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972). For a more detailed discussion of what was required by Furman and its progeny, see State v. Duren, 547 S.W.2d 476 (Mo. banc 1977), where this Court held unconstitutional a mandatory death penalty for capital murder.
The Missouri General Assembly subsequently adopted the present law. The essential and substantive difference is that, at least where the death penalty is a possibility, the jury first decides whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty of capital murder. Of course the state has the burden of proof and the defendant has the benefit of reasonable doubt. If the defendant is found guilty of capital murder, then the second stage of the trial takes place. Sec. 565.006, RSMo 1978. This is completely new in our criminal jurisprudence. Sections 565.012.4 and 565.012.5, RSMo 1978, require that before a death penalty can be assessed the jury must again be properly instructed, must find beyond a reasonable doubt that at least one of the statutory aggravating circumstances exist, and must designate its finding in writing.
As pointed out in the dissent of Seiler, J., the instructions make it clear that the law requires that aggravating circumstances must be based on evidence and that the burden of proof is upon the state to prove the same beyond a reasonable doubt. MAI-CR 2d 15.40 and MAI-CR 2d 15.42.
The law requires affirmative findings beyond a reasonable doubt stated in a special verdict form before a death penalty can be imposed by the jury. The death penalty cannot result from a negative finding. The effect of our capital-murder law is that capital murder, without more, is punishable by life imprisonment without parole for fifty years. Capital murder plus an additional verdict of aggravating circumstances authorizes but even then does not compel the death penalty.
In view of the manner in which the legislature has dealt with the punishment for capital murder, which requires a separate finding and verdict by the jury if the death penalty is to be imposed, and because this is a new and unique procedure, we ought not try to fit this into any traditional molds of lesser-included offenses or degrees of homicide. The legislature has already done that by making significant and substantive differences in the penalty section of the capital-murder statutes. They have treated the death penalty as a punishment which is unique unto itself and not comparable to any term of imprisonment.
Under our capital-murder statutes, the crime may be punished by death if, and only if, the state carries its burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt an element which is not necessarily part of the definition of capital murder. The jury does not decide this additional element when determining whether the defendant is guilty of capital murder. That additional element is the presence of a “statutory aggravating circumstance” which the jury may consider only after it finds the defendant guilty of capital murder and then only in those cases where the death penalty is sought. Thus what we have in Missouri is (1) capital murder punishable only by life imprisonment without parole for fifty years, and (2) *922capital murder plus at least one aggravating circumstance which may be but is not required to be punishable by death.
In this case the jury has already acquitted the defendant of whatever was necessary to impose the death sentence. This was done in a separate trial or hearing devoted only to that matter and in which the state had the burden of proof and the defendant had the benefit of reasonable doubt. Although it does not fit nicely into traditional concepts, it is clear that the jury has acquitted on the death penalty and the defendant is therefore not subject to retrial on that issue.
In short, the new capital-murder statutes allow a defendant to be placed in jeopardy of conviction of capital murder and then, after conviction, allow a defendant to be placed in additional and separate jeopardy of the death penalty. And this defendant, after being placed in such additional and separate jeopardy of being put to death, was acquitted of that death penalty.
I therefore dissent and would quash the preliminary rule in prohibition.

. That part of repealed § 559.010, referring to homicides committed in the course of certain felonies “felony murder”, became first-degree murder, § 565.003, RSMo 1978, punishable by life imprisonment, § 565.008.2, RSMo 1978.