Court Opinion

ID: 9584171
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:45:11.670666+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:06:56.403141
License: Public Domain

Finney, Justice,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. In my view, imposition of the death penalty upon a defendant found “guilty but mentally ill” is violative of the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the *516Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution. I would reverse.
The question before this Court is whether a person found to be guilty but mentally ill may constitutionally be sentenced to death for offenses he was helpless to prevent himself from committing; id, est, as the result of an “irresistible impulse.” My reading of the history of the pertinent legislative enactments convinces me it was not the intent of the General Assembly that such a sentence be imposed.
The Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause is directed, in part, against all punishments which by their excessive length or severity are greatly disproportioned to the offenses charged. Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782, 102 S. Ct. 3368, 73 L. Ed. (2d) 1140 (1982) (quoting Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 371, 30 S. Ct. 544, 550, 54 L. Ed. 793 (1910)). The eighth amendment mandates an individualized assessment of the appropriateness of the death penalty. Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 109 S. Ct. 2934, 106 L. Ed. (2d) 256 (1989).
Mental illness is a mitigating factor which must be considered in death penalty cases. “For today, no less than before, we may seriously question the retributive value of executing a person who has no comprehension of why he has been singled out and stripped of his fundamental right to life.” Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399, 409, 106 S. Ct. 2595, 91 L. Ed. (2d) 335 (1986).
In accepting appellant’s plea of guilty but mentally ill, the trial court found that at the time of the commission of the acts charged, appellant had the capacity to distinguish right from wrong as defined in S.C. Code Ann. § 17-24-10(A) (1976) but, because of mental disease or defect, the appellant lacked sufficient capacity to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law.
When considered in light of appellant’s personal culpability, it becomes obvious that the penalty of death in- this case is excessive; both in an absolute sense and when compared with other death sentences confirmed by this Court. This may be the only instance in South Carolina and indeed, according to my research, in the entire nation where the death penalty has been imposed after a factual determination that mental illness deprived the offender of sufficient capacity to conform his conduct to the standard required by law. I would find that this *517sentence falls squarely within the ambit of relief contemplated by the proportionality review requirement of S.C. Code Ann. § 16-3-25(0(3) (1976).
Society’s “evolving standards of decency” imposes a presumption against execution of persons lacking sufficient capacity to conform their conduct to the standards of the law. The natural abhorrence civilized societies feel at killing one who has no capacity to come to grips with his own conscience or deity is still valid today. Ford v. Wainwright, supra.
I share the view that, due to appellant’s mental illness, his sentence of death is opposed by a national consensus of sufficient uniformity and longstanding to render it cruel and unusual punishment within the meaning of the eighth amendment. Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815, 108 S. Ct. 2687, 101 L. Ed. (2d) 702 (1988) (Scalia, J., dissenting). The eighth amendment analysis applied by the United States Supreme Court in assessing the constitutionality of the death penalty for rapists, Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584, 97 S. Ct. 2861, 53 L. Ed. (2d) 982 (1977), for nontriggermen, Enmund v. Florida, supra, and for offenders under the age of sixteen, Thompson v. Oklahoma, supra, establishes with clarity the impropriety of appellant’s sentence. Though a rarity, imposition of the death penalty for the categories struck down in Coker, Enmund and Thompson was not alien to American jurisprudence. By contrast, I am unable to locate any record of a death sentence imposed under circumstances similar to that of the appellant’s when an offender entered a plea of guilty but mentally ill.
I conclude that a person found to be mentally ill who, because of mental disease or defect, is unable to comprehend the criminality of his conduct or understand the punishment, should not be subjected to the penalty of death. I would find that under these circumstances, a death sentence amounts to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the eighth amendment.
Based upon the record, appellant’s death sentences should be reversed and mandatory life sentences imposed. At the very least, I would remand for resentencing so the record may reflect that due consideration has been accorded the additional mitigating circumstance of appellant’s cooperation with law enforcement.