Court Opinion

ID: 9845425
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:21:38.596758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:07.242989
License: Public Domain

*107Hill, Justice,
concurring specially.
I concur in the setting aside of the death penalty on a 16-year-old for the additional reasons expressed in the concurring opinions of Hall, J., and this writer in Hawes v. State, 240 Ga. 327, 337, 340, 341 (240 SE2d 833) (1977). In my view, section 2 of Ga. L. 1963, p. 122, has not been repealed; it prohibits the imposition of the death penalty when the defendant has not reached his seventeenth birthday at the time of the commission of the offense. See Osborne v. Ridge View Associates, 238 Ga. 377, 379 (233 SE2d 342) (1977) (Hill, J., dissenting).
Moreover, I concur in the setting aside of the death penalty in this case because, under Code Ann. § 27-2537 (c) (3), this court is to determine whether the sentence of death is excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering not only the crime but also the defendant. We have had only one case since reenactment of our death penalty statute, Ga. L. 1973, p. 159, in which a defendant sentenced to death was under 17 at the time of commission of the crime, Hawes v. State, supra.1 Hawes’ death penalty was set aside by this court.2 Over 2 1/2 years have passed and no death penalty appeal by Hawes has reappeared before this court. It is therefore safe to assume either that Hawes was not retried, or that if he was retried the jury did not impose the death penalty. Thus, I would find that the death penalty has so rarely been imposed upon persons under 17 as to make the death sentence in this case excessive and disproportionate and hence unconstitutional. Coley v. State, 231 Ga. 829, 835 (204 SE2d 612) (1974); Gregg v. State, 233 Ga. 117, 127 (210 SE2d 659) (1974); Code Ann. § 27-2537 (c) (3). Compare Crawford v. State, 236 Ga. 491 (224 SE2d 365) (1976) (life sentence for 16-year-old); Crawford v. State, 240 Ga. 321 (240 SE2d 824) (1977) (life sentence for 16-year-old); Brooks v. State, 238 Ga. 529 (233 SE2d 783) (1977) (life sentence for 16-year-old); English v. State, 234 Ga. 602 (216 SE2d 851) (1975) (life sentence for 16-year-old).

Prior to Hawes after 15-year-old Preston Cobb, Jr., was sentenced to death in 1961, Cobb v. State, 218 Ga. 10 (126 SE2d 231) (1962), the General Assembly prohibited execution of persons under 17. Ga. L. 1963, p. 122, supra.

One basis for setting Hawes’ death penalty aside was that the jury was not *108instructed that it could consider mitigating circumstances (240 Ga. at 334). (This court was well aware that he was only 15 and that his age was a mitigating circumstance.) Because of this omission in the charge, I do not consider that Hawes v. State proves that jurors are willing to impose the penalty of death upon persons under 17.