Court Opinion

ID: 9530899
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:04:58.564794+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:17.110676
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion
DeBruler, J.
I am at odds with the majority opinion in but a single respect. The opinion seeks authority to order a new sentence of life imprisonment in lieu of the penalty of death, and finds it in subsection (a) of the first degree murder statute. Ind. Code §35-13-4-1 (Burns 1975). To justify this application of subsection (a), the opinion transforms appellant’s conviction into one under subsection (a). This is highly irregular. Subsection (a) and subsection (b) proscribe separate offenses. It is beyond question that appellant was charged under subsection (b) of the statute tried under subsection (b), and sentenced to die by electrocution under subsection (b). I do not believe that this irregular reasoning should stand as the legal basis for this Court’s order.
In my view, it is unnecessary to look beyond subsection (b) of the first degree murder statute to find authority for today’s order. The bar of the federal Constitution applied today, does not affect the integrity of appellant’s conviction for first degree murder under subsection (b), but only prevents imposing the sole penalty provided by the statute for appellant’s conviction for first degree murder, namely, death. The conviction stands. But appellant also stands convicted of second degree murder, as that offense is a lesser and included one of first degree murder under subsection (b). We would clearly remain within the appropriate limits of our judicial authority and within the confines of the statute under which appellant stands convicted, by basing our remand order upon appellant’s underlying conviction for second degree murder, rather than upon a manufactured conviction of a crime not charged.
Note. — Reported at 364 N.E.2d 1007.