Court Opinion

ID: 9670745
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:24:53.809248+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:06.237567
License: Public Domain

BARHAM, Justice
(dissenting).
The principal contention made by able counsel, who were appointed by this court to perfect this out-of-time appeal, is that the imposition of the death penalty on this defendant is unconstitutional under the United States Constitution, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, and Louisiana Constitution Article I, Section 12. Fully *1012supporting counsel’s contention is the United States Supreme Court decision handed down this day in Furman v. Georgia, 404 U.S. 812, 92 S.Ct. 113, 30 L.Ed.2d 42. See also Stewart v. Massachusetts, 408 U.S. 845, 92 S.Ct. 2845, 33 L.Ed.2d 744 (June 29, 1972). Our case falls within the views expressed by all five of the majority concurring opinions in Furman.
We are required under those holdings to set aside the sentence of the defendant James Charles Curry and remand to the trial court for sentence in conformity with these pronouncements. We have previously utilized this procedure of setting aside a death sentence and remanding for imposition of proper sentence where the death sentence (though not the conviction) was invalid under Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968). Such a procedure should be followed here. See State v. Shaffer, 260 La. 605, 257 So.2d 121 (1971); State v. Duplessis, 260 La. 644, 257 So.2d 135 (1971).
I respectfully dissent.