Court Opinion

ID: 9520960
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:54:02.116417+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:47:19.806578
License: Public Domain

Wilkins, J.
(dissenting). We should not answer the reported questions. Four years ago, when a district attorney sought this court’s decision on the constitutionality of a capital punishment statute, I said that “I alone among my colleagues believe that this court, in its discretion, should not pass on the constitution*181ality of the capital punishment statute.” District Attorney for the Suffolk Dist. v. Watson, 381 Mass. 648, 673 (1980) (Wilkins, J., concurring). Two colleagues now agree with me that it is premature to answer questions of the same general character. Post (Nolan, J., dissenting, with whom Lynch, J., joins). They go forward, however, as I did in 1980, to comment on substantive issues. I decline to do so.
The issues should be decided, when and if they arise, in specific cases. The court’s approach unnecessarily “presents a constitutional confrontation between its views and those of the Legislature. I would have preferred not to identify such a conflict unless and until the circumstances of a particular case made it unavoidable.” District Attorney for the Suffolk Dist. v. Watson, supra at 674 (Wilkins, J., concurring).