Court Opinion

ID: 9426565
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:18:18.06512+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:01.653589
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice White,
with whom The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Rehnquist join,
concurring in the judgment.
Following the invalidation of the Texas capital punishment statute in Branch v. Texas, decided with Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238 (1972), the Texas Legislature re-enacted the death penalty for five types of murder, including murders committed in the course of certain felonies and required that it be imposed providing that, after returning a guilty verdict in such murder cases and after a sentencing proceeding at which all relevant evidence is admissible, the jury answers two questions in the affirmative — and a third if raised by the evidence:
“(1) whether the conduct of the defendant that caused the death of the deceased was committed deliberately and with the reasonable expectation that the death of the deceased or another would result;
“(2) whether there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society; and
“(3) if raised by the evidence, whether the conduct of the defendant in killing the deceased was unrea*278sonable in response to the provocation, if any, by the deceased.” Tex. Code Crim. Proc., Art. 37.071 (b) (Supp. 1975-1976).
The question in this case is whether the death penalty imposed on Jerry Lane Jurek for the crime of felony murder may be carried out consistently with the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
The opinion of Mr. Justice Stewart, Mr. Justice Powell, and Mr. Justice Stevens describes, and I shall not repeat, the facts of the crime and proceedings leading to the imposition of the death penalty when the jury unanimously gave its affirmative answers to the relevant questions posed in the judge’s post-verdict instructions. I also agree with that opinion that the judgment of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which affirmed the conviction and judgment, must be affirmed here. 522 S. W. 2d 934 (1975).
For the reasons stated in my dissent in Roberts v. Louisiana, post, at 350-356, I cannot conclude that the Eighth Amendment forbids the death penalty under any and all circumstances. I also cannot agree with petitioner’s other major contention that under the new Texas statute and the State’s criminal justice system in general, the criminal jury and other law enforcement officers exercise such a range of discretion that the death penalty will be imposed so seldom, so arbitrarily, and so freakishly that the new statute suffers from the infirmities which Branch v. Texas found in its predecessor. Under the revised law, the substantive crime of murder is defined; and when a murder occurs in one of the five circumstances set out in the statute, the death penalty must be imposed if the jury also makes the certain additional findings against the defendant. Petitioner claims that the additional questions upon which the death sentence depends are so vague that in essence the *279jury possesses standardless sentencing power; but I agree with Justices Stewart, Powell, and Stevens that the issues posed in the sentencing proceeding have a common-sense core of meaning and that criminal juries should be capable of understanding them. The statute does not extend to juries discretionary power to dispense mercy, and it should not be assumed that juries will disobey or nullify their instructions. As of February of this year, 33 persons, including petitioner, had been sentenced to death under the Texas murder statute. I cannot conclude at this juncture that the death penalty under this system will be imposed so seldom and arbitrarily as to serve no useful penological function and hence fall within reach of the decision announced by five Members of the Court in Furman v. Georgia.
Nor, for the reasons I have set out in Roberts, post, at 348-350, and Gregg, ante, at 224-225, am I convinced that this conclusion should be modified because of the alleged discretion which is exercisable by other major functionaries in the State’s criminal justice system. Furthermore, as Justices Stewart, Powell, and Stevens state and as the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has noted, the Texas capital punishment statute limits the imposition of the death penalty to a narrowly defined group of the most brutal crimes and aims at limiting its imposition to similar offenses occurring under similar circumstances. 522 S. W. 2d, at 939.
I concur in the judgment of affirmance.