Court Opinion

ID: 9764943
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:45:00.219737+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:52:15.903555
License: Public Domain

Francis, J.
(dissenting). Mrs. Carmella Rapolla owned and operated a neighborhood grocery store in Matawan, N. J. She was the widowed mother and sole support of three children. They lived in the rear of and above the store. Her *493twelve year old daughter and seven year old son were at home with her; her older son was away at college.
On the afternoon of January 10, 1968, the defendant entered the store and killed Mrs. Rapolla by pumping five bullets into her body. In due course, the Monmouth County Prosecutor obtained a murder indictment against the defendant and when the case went to trial, in furtherance of his belief that his duty to the public required it, he sought the death penalty as punishment for the crime. After what the majority of this Court expressly found to be a full and fair trial of the issue of guilt, the jury found defendant guilty of murder in the first degree.
The jury had been told properly by the trial court that if they found guilt of first degree murder, they should turn to the problem of punishment. And the Legislature having dealt with the subject in mandatory terms, they were instructed in the language of the statute that such killers "shall suffer death unless the jury shall by its verdict, and as a part thereof, upon and after the consideration of all the evidence, recommend life imprisonment, in which case this and no greater punishment shall be imposed.” (Emphasis added.) N. J. S. A. 2A:113-4. Upon and after a consideration of all the evidence, the jury of Monmouth County citizens found no circumstances mitigating the heinousness of the murder, concluded that a death sentence was required, and declined to recommend life imprisonment. Accordingly, the trial court performed the duty concerning which the Legislature had left it no other choice and imposed a death sentence on the defendant.
Now, for the second time in a short period, the majority of this Court have interposed themselves between the jury and the Legislature and, in my view, thwarted their judgment and their will by reducing the death sentence to life imprisonment. See State v. Laws, 51 N. J. 494 (1968). As I noted in my dissent in Laws, in our tripartite system of government the power to prescribe the penalty for a crime (within constitutional limits) resides in the Legislature. That power *494is an incident of the sovereign right of the State to maintain social order and to take life or liberty when deemed necessary in the interest of that order.
To repeat part of the dissent:
“There can be no doubt that if the statute [N. J. S. A. 2A. :113-A, supra] ended after the phrase ‘shall suffer death,’ that punishment would be mandatory. If the Legislature had not made provision for any other penalty, the judicial branch of the government would be bound by the mandate If on appeal from such a death sentence trial error appeared in the record, the authority of the appellate tribunal to rectify the error would be limited to an order for a new trial. Obviously a life imprisonment sentence could not be substituted for the death penalty. The Legislature, however, in adopting the statute in its present form, did establish a qualification — a single qualification — on its mandate compelling the death penalty for first degree murder. It is that the murderer shall suffer death unless the jury upon and after a consideration of all the evidence shall recommend life imprisonment. In my judgment, this qualification does not grant to the judiciary any greater authority than it had before the qualification was added. All the Legislature did, and in my view all it intended to do, was to give the jury the authority to lower the death penalty to life imprisonment if in its judgment — not the court’s judgment, either trial or appellate — the evidence was such that clemency should be shown. On appeal from a death sentence, the authority of the court remained the same as before the qualification was added by the lawmakers. If trial error of any kind was shown, either on the guilt or innocence or penalty aspect of the case, which was prejudicial to the defendant’s right to a fair trial according to law, there is not the slightest indication that the Legislature intended to empower the courts to substitute a life sentence for the death sentence which the jury verdict made mandatory. * * *” 51 N. J. at 51&-520.
I consider the vacation of the death penalty in this ease and its modification to life imprisonment (in reality, a sentence of 15 years or less) an invasion of the power granted by our Constitution to the legislative branch of the government. Assumption of such power constitutes a disregard of the basic separation of powers doctrine and sets in motion an erosion of our democratic form of government. To quote Montesquieu, “there is no liberty if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control; for the judge would be then *495the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with violence and oppression.” Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, XXY, c. 2, quoted in The Federalist #78, p. 521 (Heritage Edition 1945).
The fundamental tenet of judicial review is that only the power of the Legislature, not the wisdom or policy of the legislation, is a fit subject for consideration. Judicially we must tolerate what personally we may regard as a legislative mistake, Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U. S. 580, 590, 72 S. Ct. 512, 96 L. Ed. 586, 599 (1952). We need not agree with a legislative judgment in order to obey a legislative command. Judicial power is never exercised for the purpose of giving effect to the will of the judge; always for the purpose of giving effect to the will of the Legislature; or in other words, the will of the law. Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 866, 6 L. Ed. 204, 234 (1824).
The Legislature spoke clearly in N. J. S. A. 2A :113-4 as to the punishment for first degree murder. Whether or not we like the death penalty mandate laid down there, we do our system an injustice by frustrating the legislative will. If the death penalty no longer represents the public will, the legislators, who are responsible at the polls to the people, are entrusted by the Constitution with the decision to change it.1 Reexamination of the majority opinion in State v. Laws has strengthened my view that the action of the majority in changing the death sentence in this case to life imprisonment is a usurpation of legislative power. Nor do I find any support for such a change in the suggestion that if we are to keep the faith and match the vision of the delegates to the 1947 Constitutional Convention, the power should be found. Such generalization finds no specific support in the minutes of the Convention. It seems obvious to me that no such vision, as has been made an actuality here, was ever on the Convention horizon. If it had been, I have little doubt *496that control of the punishment for first degree murder would have been left where it still remains, in the hands of the Legislature.2
I concur in that portion of the majority opinion which finds that the manner of selection of the trial jury transgressed the rule announced in Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 510, 89 S. Ct. 1770, 20 L. Ed. 2d 776 (1968). Since that error related to the matter of punishment alone, for the reasons expressed in the dissent in State v. Laws, supra, I would allow the part of the verdict relating to guilt to stand and would remand to the trial court for a retrial by a jury on the issue of punishment alone.
Justices Proctor and Haneman concurring in result.
For affirmance and modification— Chief Justice Weintratjb and Justices Jacobs, Proctor, Hall, Schettiro and Haneman — 6 .
For affirmance and remandment — Justice Erancis — -1.

See First Annual Message of Governor William T. Cahill to the Legislature, January 12, 1971 at 59-60.

Footnote 12 to the majority opinion in Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 510, 519, 88 S. Ct. 1770, 20 L. Ed. 2d 776, 783 (1968) points out that at the time of defendant’s trial the Illinois statute made the jury’s death penalty verdict binding- upon the judge. In 1967 the Legislature by amendment to the statute empowered the court to reject the death verdict.