Court Opinion

ID: 9514348
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:48:50.216604+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:16.403155
License: Public Domain

AMUNDSON, Justice
(dissenting).
[¶ 227] I respectfully dissent on Issue 14, for I believe the majority’s comparative proportionality review universe or pool is too restrictive. When I embarked on this mandated review, I felt much like Benjamin N. Cardozo when he stated:
I was much troubled in spirit in my first years upon the bench, to find how trackless was the ocean on which I had embarked. I sought for certainty. I was oppressed and disheartened when I found that the quest for it was futile.... As the years have gone by, and as I have reflected more and more upon the nature of the judicial process, I have become reconciled to the uncertainty, because I have grown to see it as inevitable. I have grown to see that the process in its highest reaches is not discovery, but creation; and that the doubts and misgivings, the hopes and fears, are part of the travail of mind, the pangs of death and the pangs of birth, in which principles that have served their day expire, and new principles are born.
Benjamin N. Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process, 166 (1921).
[¶ 228] One of the fundamentals of proportionality review is to avoid “death sentences imposed ... wantonly or freakishly.” Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 224, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2948, 49 L.Ed.2d 859, 903 (1976) (White, J., concurring). In order to avoid such a result, a larger pool needs to be used for comparison to ensure we properly perform this ominous task. This maiden voyage provides an opportunity to establish a procedure for evaluating the appropriateness of a death sentence. A court should not lose sight of the fact that the purpose of this review is fairness notwithstanding the nature of the crime.
[¶ 229] In State v. Mercer, 618 S.W.2d 1, 21 (Mo.1981) (Seiler, J., dissenting) it was noted:
By “similar cases” is meant similar capital murders, not limited only to those where both death and life imprisonment were submitted to the jury and then affirmed on appeal, whichever way the case went on punishment. The evil deed is the *462murder and what accompanied it and that, as well as the defendant, is what must be looked at in comparing what one defendant received in punishment under a capital murder charge with what another received. The fact that a capital murder defendant does not get the death penalty or gets a new trial or that the state waived the death penalty in his ease or that his case is still pending before us does not mean that we can ignore his case in making our comparison. Once we accept the idea, as we must, that the death penalty cannot be inflicted at random, or arbitrarily or inconsistently, then necessarily we must take into consideration all capital murders we know about.
[¶ 230] Our state legislature mandates us to carry out proportionality review. SDCL 23A-27A-12. Since 1979, SDCL 23A-27A-8 has required this court to accumulate the records of all capital felony cases that we deem appropriate. The information available at this time tracks cases from 1981 until 1993. Our records contain forty-eight capital felony cases that we deemed appropriate to accumulate. Beyond the records assembled in Pierre at this time, there are at least four other cases that could be included in this accumulation.8 What is the majority’s rationale for culling this established pool to seven? Since the legislature has mandated this review, it must be meaningful or the result will be suspect. As Justice Utter stated in his dissent in State v. Benn, 120 Wash.2d 631, 845 P.2d 289, 326-27 (1993):
Without such review, the death penalty, like lightning, will strike some, but not others, in a way that defies rational explanation. The severity of the death penalty, its irrevocability, and our statutory mandate, require us to assess carefully whether the death penalty has been imposed arbitrarily. We cannot, under the statute, simply defer to a jury’s sentencing determination.
[¶ 231] SDCL 23A-27A-12(3) states that we are to consider both the crime and the defendant when conducting our comparative review, not just that a capital proceeding took place. In South Dakota, only two people since 1979 have been sentenced to death out of at least fifty-two eligible criminals. In conducting comparative proportionality review, if we required a case to be on all fours with the other cases in order for them to be similar, I submit that would be impossible. By using the pool already assembled by this court, it gives notice to the parties involved in the litigation as to what cases will be considered. Then, the litigants can make their argument on this issue based on that pool. Otherwise, a defendant does not find out what are similar cases until the decision is handed down. There is no statute in South Dakota that defines “similar case” nor does any statute provide us with a standard for performing the mandated review. On the other hand, all of the cases which I recommend be included in the pool have one similarity, namely, a wrongful taking of another person’s life. By employing such a pool, this court would be proceeding with appropriate care and caution when making a decision involving life or death of a human being.
[¶ 232] In conclusion, I might personally feel Rhines has earned the sentence imposed by the jury, but that is not the issue. The issue is whether the death penalty is being imposed uniformly and not arbitrarily. This issue cannot be resolved by only considering cases where capital sentencing proceedings were actually conducted.

. State v. Helmer, 1996 SD 31, 545 N.W.2d 471 (Convicted July 8, 1994. Victim was shot and then decapitated and hands removed.); State v. Henjum, 1996 SD 7, 542 N.W.2d 760 (Pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the first degree sometime in 1994. Defendant shot victim with no provocation.); State v. New, 536 N.W.2d 714 (S.D.1995) (Convicted May 2, 1994, of second-degree murder. New stated he did not actually murder, just witnessed.); State v. Larson, 512 N.W.2d 732 (S.D.1994) (Convicted November 21, 1992, of second-degree murder. Victim shot while driving down Interstate.).