Calton v. People of the Territory of Utah
| Decision Date | 11 March 1889 |
| Citation | 130 U.S. 83,9 S.Ct. 435,32 L.Ed. 870 |
| Parties | CALTON v. PEOPLE OF THE TERRITORY OF UTAH. 1 |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Arthur Brown and
John H. Mitchell, for plaintiff in error.
Asst. Atty. Gen. Maury, for defendant in error.
Mr. Justice HARLAN, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court.
The Penal Code of Utah, established by the act of February 18, 1876, provides that 'every murder perpetrated by poison, lying in wait, or any other kind of willful, deliberate, malicious and premeditated killing; or committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, any arson, rape, burglary, or robbery; or perpetrated from a premeditated design, unlawfully and maliciously to effect the death of any other human being other than him who is killed; or perpetrated by any act greatly dangerous to the lives of others, and evidencing a depraved mind, regardless of human life,—is murder in the first degree; and any other homicide, committed under such circumstances as would have constituted murder at common law, is murder in the second degree.' Comp. Laws Utah 1876, p. 585. The same Code further provides that 'every person guilty of murder in the first degree shall suffer death, or, upon the recommendation of the jury, may be imprisoned at hard labor in the penitentiary for life, at the discretion of the court, and every person guilty of murder in the second degree shall be imprisoned at hard labor and the penitentiary for not less than five nor more than fifteen years.' Comp. Laws Utah 1876, p. 586. It is clear that the authority given in the section last quoted, to substitute imprisonment at hard labor in the penitentiary for life for the penalty of death, when the accused is found guilty of murder in the first degree, depends upon a previous recommendation to that effect by the jury. Without such recommendation, the court, in the absence of sufficient grounds for a new trial, has no alternative but to sentence the accused to suffer death. While in this case the jury were instructed as to what constituted murder in the first and second degrees, they were not informed as to their right, under the statute, to recommend imprisonment for life at hard labor in the penitentiary in place of the punishment of death. If their attention had been called to that statute, it may be that they would have made such a recommendation, and thereby enabled the court to reduce the punishment to imprisonment for life. We are of opinion that the court erred...
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...(Id. at 197-98)23 The Court's emphasis on careful sentencing instructions in capital cases is not new. Nearly a century ago, in Calton v. Utah, 130 U.S. 83 (1889), the Supreme Court reversed a death sentence because the trial court's instructions had failed clearly to inform the jury of its......
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...between death and life imprisonment. See Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae 128—137. 12. See also Calton v. Utah, 130 U.S. 83, 9 S.Ct. 435, 32 L.Ed. 870 (1889), in which the Court reversed a conviction under the statutes of Utah Territory in which the jury had not been informed of......
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