Court Opinion

ID: 9660074
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:03:20.06423+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:14.410046
License: Public Domain

BLACKMAR, Judge,
dissenting.
For the reasons assigned by Judge Billings the points raised by appointed counsel are without substance. The trial judge is *418to be commended for his fair and balanced handling of a very difficult situation.
Judge Billings expounds the deliberateness and atrocity of the killing. Judge Donnelly, in his dissenting opinion, demonstrates the vagaries in jury sentencing, describing killings which are no less repulsive, but in which the jury did not assess the death penalty. He senses a tendency to assess life rather than death when the offender is very young. I cannot add to the meticulous scholarship of both of my brethren.
Section 565.035.2, RSMo 1986, effective 10-1-84, directs us to “consider the punishment....” Pursuant to this obligation, I would hold that a defendant who was a juvenile at the time of the offense should not be subject to the death penalty. In State v. Battle,'661 S.W.2d 487, 495 (Mo. banc 1983) and State v. Lashley, 667 S.W.2d 712, 717 (Mo. banc. 1984), I argued unsuccessfully against death sentences for minors. I would draw a line at the juvenile level. Lines must be drawn somewhere; the offender below fourteen may not be punished as a criminal. See Section 211.-071, RSMo 1986. The death sentence should be reserved for those capable of mature deliberation. See Ellison, “State Execution of Juveniles: Defining ‘Youth’ as a Mitigating Factor for Imposing a Sentence of Less than Death.” 11 Law and Psychology Review 1 (Spring, 1987).
It is suggested that my position is contrary to state policy as defined by the legislature, inasmuch as the statutes contain no prohibition on the execution of persons who were juveniles at the time of commission of the offense. I believe that the duties imposed on us by Section 565.035.2 authorize us to adopt some objective standards for imposition of the death penalty. I also submit that our duties under that section are in addition to the duty of comparison imposed by 565.035.3, and that we should undertake a broader review of death sentences than we have in the past.
I concur with Judge Donnelly as to the remaining issues discussed in his dissenting opinion.