Court Opinion

ID: 9842052
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-22 20:12:30.64855+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:28.516577
License: Public Domain

Justice Blackmun,
dissenting.
I join Parts II through V of Justice Marshall’s opinion in dissent.
I had understood the issue in this case to be whether a State constitutionally may instruct a jury about the Governor’s power to commute a sentence of life without parole. That issue involves jury consideration of the probability of *1029action by the incumbent Governor or by future Governors. Instead, the Court, on its own, redefines the issue in terms of the dangerousness of the respondent, an issue that involves jury consideration of the probability that respondent will commit acts of violence in the future. Ante, at 1002-1003. As both Justice Marshall, ante, at 1018-1019, and Justice Stevens, post, at 1030, so forcefully point out, the two questions do not relate to each other. Neither the State of California nor the solitary dissenter in the State’s Supreme Court ventured such an argument.
The issue actually presented is an important one, and there may be arguments supportive of the instruction. The Court, however, chooses to present none. Instead, it approves the Briggs Instruction by substituting an intellectual sleight of hand for legal analysis. This kind of appellate review compounds the original unfairness of the instruction itself, and thereby does the rule of law disservice. I dissent.