Court Opinion

ID: 9600600
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:28:34.577566+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:53.290596
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON REHEARING
CORNISH, Judge:
On March 30, 1982, the appellant filed a petition for rehearing in the above styled and numbered case. Upon reconsideration of our opinion issued on March 12, 1982, we find it necessary to withdraw that portion of the opinion which directs the case to be remanded solely for a resentencing trial.
There is no official legislative history available on the drafting of the bill1 re-enacting the death penalty provision in Oklahoma. It appears, however, that the Oklahoma Legislature used as a model the statutory scheme which had been recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976). Within days of the decision, an extraordinary session of the Oklahoma Legislature was convened solely for the purpose of enactment of a new death penalty statute. Language of the Oklahoma section providing for review of death sentences is almost identical to that in Code Ga. § 27-2537. Part (E) of the corresponding Oklahoma provision, discussed infra, departs significantly, however, from the Georgia provision, Section 27— 2537(e), which authorizes the reviewing court to:
(1) Affirm the sentence of death; or
(2) Set the sentence aside and remand the case for resentencing by the trial judge based on the record and argument of counsel. The record of those similar cases referred to by the Supreme Court in its decision and the extracts prepared as provided for in subsection (a) of Code Section 17-10-37 shall be provided to the resentencing judge for his consideration.
Had the Oklahoma Legislature intended to provide for retrial of the sentencing proceeding only, as did Georgia, then it could have enacted a similar procedure.
Under Oklahoma death penalty statutes the sentencing proceeding must be conducted before the same jury which adjudicated the defendant’s guilt. Title 21 O.S. 1981, § 701.10 provides:
Upon conviction or adjudication of guilt of a defendant of murder in the first degree, the court shall conduct a separate sentencing proceeding to determine whether the defendant should be sentenced to death or life imprisonment. The proceeding shall be conducted by the trial judge before the trial jury as soon as practicable without presentence investigation. If the trial jury has been waived by the defendant and the state, or if the *827defendant pleaded guilty or nolo conten-dere, the sentencing proceeding shall be conducted before the court.. (Emphasis added.)
We are now convinced that a plain reading of 21 O.S.1981, § 701.13, does not authorize this Court to remand a death case, tried before a jury, solely for a resentencing before a different jury, even when error occurs only in the sentencing stage. Section 701.13(E) provides that with regard to review of death sentences this Court shall be authorized to:
1. Affirm the sentence of death; dr
2. Set the sentence aside and remand the case for modification of the sentence to imprisonment for life.
Therefore, since this Court is unwilling to speculate as to the effect the improper aggravating circumstance, murder for remuneration, had on the jury’s recommendation to impose the death penalty, we find it necessary to modify the sentence to life imprisonment in accordance with Section 701.13(E). When prejudicial error occurs in the sentencing stage of the trial only, this Court has consistently modified the death sentence to life imprisonment and otherwise affirmed. See Odum v. State, 53 OBAJ 2264, 651 P.2d 703 (Okl.Cr.1982); Burrows v. State, 640 P.2d 533 (Okl.Cr.1982); Irvin v. State, 617 P.2d 588 (Okl.Cr.1980). See also our opinion handed down today in Boutwell v. State, 659 P.2d 322 (Okl.Cr.1983), in which this Court reached the same result on these grounds.
The judgment is AFFIRMED, except as to the imposition of the death sentence; the death sentence is vacated and the case is REMANDED to the District Court of Tulsa County for MODIFICATION of the sentence to life imprisonment.
BRETT, J., concurs.
BUSSEY, P.J., concurs in part and dissents in part.

. S.B. No. 1 approved July 23, 1976, in the First Extraordinary Session of the 35th Legislature.