Court Opinion

ID: 9864858
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:14:30.634028+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:32:16.535664
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Bouck,
specially concurring.
I concur in the reversal herein for the reason assigned therefor by Mr. Justice Butler in the opinion of the court.
However, there is one point in that opinion with which 1 cannot agree. Its language seems to imply that the trial court has the right to withdraw from the jury all consideration of murder of the second degree. Section 6665, C. L. 1921, plainly requires that where a defendant pleads guilty of murder “the court shall thereupon impanel a jury as in other cases, to which shall be submitted, as the sole issue in the case, the question whether the hilling was murder of the first or second degree.” No words could be clearer than these. It seems to me, therefore, that a failure to submit to the jury the issue so prescribed would be a usurpation of the functions properly belonging to the jury. It is well to remember that, while by statute the common law ordinarily governs criminal procedure in Colorado (C. L. 1921, §7099), the procedure supplied by the above quoted part of section 6665 is in derogation of the common law and should therefore be strictly construed. In other words, I think there is no justification or excuse for not applying that procedure according to the letter and spirit of the statute.