Court Opinion

ID: 9716515
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:42:34.049952+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:46.326829
License: Public Domain

Braucher, J.
(concurring in the result). On the constitutional issues discussed in the opinions of my brothers, I find myself in agreement with the dissenting opinion of Justice Reardon. The latter opinion recognizes, however, that a substantial Federal and State constitutional question is presented. I therefore think we should first ascertain whether a construction of the statute is fairly possible by which the question may be avoided. See First Natl. Bank v. Attorney Gen. 362 Mass. 570, 594-597 (1972) (concurring opinion of Quirico, J.); School Comm. of Springfield v. Board of Educ. 366 Mass. 315, 334 (1974) (concurring opinion of Quirico, J.). In my opinion such a construction is not only fairly possible but plainly right. I therefore concur in the result reached by the court, though not in the reasons given for that result.
We recently reviewed the history of capital punishment in Massachusetts. See Commonwealth v. Harrington, 367 Mass. 13, 17-22 (1975). Before 1951 the death sentence was the only punishment for first degree murder. In 1951 our statute took substantially its present form, permitting the jury, as part of a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, to recommend that the sentence of death be not imposed. G. L. c. 265, § 2, as appearing in St. 1951, c. 203. The punishment was then to be imprisonment for life without parole. “No such *280recommendation shall be made by a jury or recorded by the court if the murder was committed in connection with the commission of rape or an attempt to commit rape.” Thus the punishment for first degree rape murder was to be the same as the punishment in any other first degree murder case in which no such recommendation was made. Until the decision in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), that punishment was death.
The Furman decision eliminated the death penalty in cases where no jury recommendation was made, if the jury were permitted to recommend that the sentence of death be not imposed. Stewart v. Massachusetts, 408 U.S. 845 (1972). Literally, the statute does not provide for any other penalty in such cases, but we held, “as matter of statutory construction,” that “the only remaining relevant permissible penalty is imprisonment for life.” Commonwealth v. Cassesso, 368 Mass. 124, 125 (1975). See Commonwealth v. Gilday, 367 Mass. 474, 485-486 (1975), and cases cited.
The possibility remained that we might hold, as to first degree murder committed after the Furman decision, that the provision for a jury recommendation was sever-able and invalid, and that the death sentence was mandatory. The trial judge in the Harrington case took that view, but we held that the only proper punishment was imprisonment for life. Commonwealth v. Harrington, supra at 21-22. We recognized that the trial judge’s view “had support in decisions in other States and was not clearly foreclosed by decisions of this court or the Supreme Court of the United States.” Id. at 23. But we had “no way of knowing how the Legislature would have reacted in 1951 if it had foreseen the situation which arose more than twenty years later.” Id. at 21-22. We therefore adopted the “construction which operates in favor of life or liberty.” Id. at 22, quoting Commonwealth v. Martin, 17 Mass. 359, 362 (1821).
Now we have before us a question expressly left open in the Harrington case. By implication a bare majority *281of the Justices take the view that the provision for a jury recommendation is severable, and that what remains is a mandatory provision for the death penalty applicable only in cases of first degree rape murder. In all other cases where no jury recommendation is made, the statutory provision for the punishment of death, “as matter of statutory construction,” means imprisonment for life, but in rape murder cases it means death. An isolated fragment of what was once an intelligible policy is thus preserved. This result is contrary to the clear statutory direction that rape murder cases be treated like other cases in which no jury recommendation is made. The majority Justices attribute to the Legislature an intention which is then held unconstitutional. Worse, the majority opinions cast serious doubts on the constitutionality of any death penalty which may be enacted hereafter. In order to prevent review by the Supreme Court of the United States, the case is made to turn on the Massachusetts Constitution rather than on the substantially similar provisions of the United States Constitution. Reliance is placed on a California decision which was promptly annulled by the people of California. Compare People v. Anderson, 6 Cal. 3d 628 (1972), cert. den. sub nom. California v. Anderson, 406 U.S. 958 (1972), with California Constitution, art. 1, § 27, adopted November 7, 1972.
So far as I can discover, no Legislature anywhere has ever established a system in which rape murder is punished by a mandatory death sentence and no other crime is subject to any death sentence. Certainly our Legislature did not vote for such a system in 1951. Recent proposals, vetoed by the Governor, to enact a mandatory death penalty have not embodied such a system. 1973 Senate Doc. No. 1976. 1974 House Doc. No. 5360, vetoed, 1974 House Doc. No. 5540. 1975 House Doc. No. 603, vetoed, 1975 House Doc. No. 5909. The logic of our decisions since the Furman case is opposed to our establishment of such a system. Indeed, the system is *282now established only as a straw man, so that it can be destroyed. I would prefer to adopt the “construction which operates in favor of life or liberty.”
The legislative history of the 1951 amendment confirms my view. The sponsors of the bill sought to eliminate capital punishment as a practical matter by the provision for a jury recommendation. They felt that abolition as matter of law was too drastic a change, and that a bill proposing total abolition would have a poor chance of passage. See Note, The Death Penalty in Massachusetts, 8 Suffolk U.L. Rev. 632, 635 (1974). After the bill passed the House, the provision precluding a jury recommendation in rape murder cases was added in the Senate by a vote of 20 to 19. The sponsor of the added provision was one of 15 who voted for it and then voted against the bill when it passed by a vote of 20 to 16. 1951 Senate Journal 608-612, 647-648. If the Legislature had foreseen the situation that has now arisen, it is extremely unlikely that it would have enacted the result this court now reaches. It is far more likely that it would have left in force the pre-1951 mandatory death penalty for all first degree murder, contrary to our decision in the Harrington case.
In sum, we should give great weight to a legislative judgment on what sentence is appropriate, but we are not bound to defer to a judgment the Legislature never made. When an intelligible legislative policy is tortured beyond recognition by constitutional developments, it may be the part of wisdom to await explicit new legislation, taking account of the new situation, rather than to preserve a remnant of the former policy. Cf. Commonwealth v. Horton, 365 Mass. 164, 171-172 (1974); Commonwealth v. A Juvenile, 368 Mass. 580, 598-599 (1975).
One final thought. To sentence a man today to be executed, if at all, at an indefinite time several years from now may well be to inflict a cruel and unusual punishment. No one desires that result, but in the present situation it seems as a practical matter to be the *283almost inevitable result of a death sentence. For the reasons I have already stated, I cannot bring myself to attribute to the Legislature of 1951 an intention which would produce that result in the case now before us.