Court Opinion

ID: 9768269
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:53:34.794222+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:38.941581
License: Public Domain

CLAYTON, Justice,
dissenting.
I must, in good faith and conscience, dissent, in part, from the opinion held by the majority of the court in this case. I view Dobbert v. Florida, 432 U.S. 282, 97 S.Ct. 2290, 53 L.Ed.2d 344 (1977) as controlling this court’s disposition of the sentencing issues as presented by the appellant.
In the present case, as in Dobbert, the criminal defendant was sentenced to death for a murder committed during a period in which an invalid death penalty statute was operating. The United States Supreme Court ultimately held, in Dobbert, that the unconstitutionality of the death penalty statute for reasons connected to its procedural administration did not deprive the defendant of a substantial right in violation of the ex post facto clause of the United States Constitution, Article 1, § 10. The parallels between Dobbert and this case are too close for me to find fault with the reasoning of the high court. As the Court stated:
“ ‘[t]he inhibition upon the passage of ex post facto laws does not give a criminal a right to be tried, in all respects, by the law in force when the crime charged was committed’ (citation omitted). ‘[T]he constitutional provision was intended to secure substantial personal rights against arbitrary and oppressive legislation (citation omitted) and not to limit the legislative control of remedies and modes of procedure which do not affect matters of substance.’ ”
Dobbert, supra, at 293, 97 S.Ct. at 2298. See also, Hopt v. Utah, 110 U.S. 574, 4 S.Ct. 202, 28 L.Ed. 262 (1884) and Thompson v. Missouri, 171 U.S. 380, 18 S.Ct. 922, 43 L.Ed. 204 (1898). For an incisive discussion on ex post facto law, see 53 L.Ed.2d 1146 (1978).
Furthermore, the following language, quoted by the Court in Hopt, supra, applies equally to Hudson, as it did to Dobbert:
“The crime for which the present defendant was indicted, the punishment prescribed therefor, and the quantity or the degree of proof necessary to establish his guilt, all remained unaffected by the subsequent statute.”
Dobbert, supra, 432 U.S. at 294, 97 S.Ct. at 2299.
When, in Dobbert, the petitioner argued that his rights had been violated because at the time he committed the murders there was no valid death penalty “in effect,” the Court countered with:
Whether or not the old statute would, in the future, withstand constitutional attack, it clearly indicated [the state’s] view of the severity of murder and of the degree of punishment which the legislature wished to impose upon murderers. The statute was intended to provide maximum deterrence, and its existence . . . provided fair warning as to the degree of culpability which the State ascribed to the act of murder.
Dobbert, supra, at 297, 97 S.Ct. at 2300.
The appellant, Hudson, had more than sufficient notice at the time he committed and was indicted for the crimes, that murder, as defined in KRS § 507.020 was a capital offense, punishable by death. The fact that the statute prescribing impositions of the death penalty was subsequently held to be unconstitutional and eventually replaced with a statute conforming to constitutional standards is really nothing more than an alteration of the manner and form in which the death penalty is to be administered.
I would affirm the appellant’s conviction and sentence as rendered by the Jefferson Circuit Court.