Jacobs v. State
Decision Date | 19 May 1978 |
Citation | 361 So.2d 640 |
Parties | In re Jerry Wayne JACOBS v. STATE of Alabama. Ex parte Jerry Wayne Jacobs. SC 2808. |
Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
John L. Carroll and Morris S. Dees, Jr. Montgomery, for petitioner.
William J. Baxley, Atty. Gen., and James S. Ward, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
This case concerns the constitutionality of Act 213, 1975 Ala. Acts, p. 701, Et seq., 1 which provides penalties for certain aggravated homicides. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction of murder in the first degree, including the sentence of death, and held the Act constitutional. We affirm.
A full statement of the facts is contained in the opinion of the Court of Criminal Appeals, 361 So.2d 607, but briefly stated, the facts are, that on July 17, 1976, Jerry Wayne Jacobs, his brother, John Jacobs, and his nephew, Thomas Eugene Brown, went to the Star Pool Hall in Cullman with the intent to rob Walter Robert Knight. When Knight left the pool hall, the three offered him a ride, which he took. A short while later, while Jacobs pointed a sawed-off .22 caliber rifle at him, Knight was robbed of several hundred dollars.
The three men then drove Knight to a secluded section of Highway U.S. 31. Knight's shoes were removed and Jacobs took him approximately one hundred yards into the woods. Brown testified that while he was waiting at the car, he heard Knight plead for his life. Immediately thereafter, he heard a shot. Jacobs, in a statement entered into evidence, admitted shooting Knight. He contends, however, that Brown shot him two additional times after the Jacobses had returned to the car.
The State Toxicologist testified that Knight died from two gunshot wounds delivered to the back of the head. No further wounds were found.
Following the incident, the three divided the money and fled the state. Brown surrendered when he returned home to Cullman. The Jacobses were apprehended shortly thereafter in North Carolina.
Pursuant to § 2, 1975 Ala. Acts, p. 701, 2 the jury was not charged as to any lesser offenses. Furthermore, when they returned the guilty verdict, they fixed punishment at death. At the post-trial sentence hearing, the trial judge, after listing the aggravating circumstances, sentenced Jacobs to death.
Jacobs states the issues, as follows:
The primary contention raised by Jacobs is that Alabama's Death Penalty Act is unconstitutional because it violates the "cruel and unusual punishment" clause of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Initially, it should be noted that this case is not controlled by our recent decision in Harris v. State, 352 So.2d 479 (Ala.1977). That case dealt with Tit. 14, § 319, Code, and involved the narrow constitutional question concerning imposition of the death penalty for one convicted of first degree murder while already serving a life sentence. A plurality of this Court upheld the statute because of the narrow category of the offense on which it was based a category not expressly addressed, and thus not proscribed, by the United States Supreme Court. See Harris, at 483, 484.
The Act presently before us involves imposition of the death penalty for one convicted of any one of several enumerated aggravated homicides. It was passed in response to Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972), and Hubbard v. State, 290 Ala. 118, 274 So.2d 298 (1973). Without going into the well-known intricacies of the nine separate opinions in Furman, suffice it to say that Alabama's old death statute was rendered unconstitutional, at least, insofar as it gave the jury, as the sentencing authority, a standardless discretion, in fixing the death penalty. See Hubbard, supra. Thereafter, but before several illuminating United States Supreme Court decisions were rendered, the legislature enacted the present Act which takes all discretion in sentencing away from the jury. Furthermore, a bifurcated system was established so that the trial judge, at a subsequent post-trial sentence hearing, could reduce the death sentence to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. § 3, 1975 Ala. Acts, p. 703. 3
The pertinent provisions of Alabama's sentencing scheme are as follows:
Under this statutory scheme, the jury, if it finds a defendant guilty, is Mandatorily required to fix the punishment at death. If the jury fails "to agree . . . on the fixing of the penalty of death," the defendant is not discharged; the court may enter a judgment of mistrial.
As we interpret Alabama's sentencing statute in death cases, the jury is powerless to fix any punishment other than death, if they find the accused guilty. Alabama, therefore, does not permit the jury to exercise Any discretion in fixing punishment. 4 We find no fault with this. Under this scheme, it is only reasonable to assume that juries will consider the grave consequences of a conviction in reaching their verdict. Cf. Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 49 L.Ed.2d 944 (1976), wherein the court noted:
" . . . In view of the historic record, it is only reasonable to assume that many juries under mandatory statutes will continue to consider the grave consequences of a conviction in reaching a verdict."
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...139 L.Ed. 2d 702 (1998). Alabama's sentencing scheme broadly allows the accused to present evidence in mitigation. Jacobs v. State, 361 So. 2d 640, 652–53 (Ala. 1978). See 13A–5–45(g), Ala. Code 1975 ("the defendant shall be allowed to offer any mitigating circumstance defined in Sections 1......
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Wright v. State
...of the 1975 Act, the jury, if it found a defendant guilty, was "mandatorily required to fix the punishment at death." Jacobs v. State, 361 So.2d 640, 643 (Ala.1978), cert. denied, Jacobs v. Alabama, 439 U.S. 1122, 99 S.Ct. 1034, 59 L.Ed.2d 83 (1979). The jury was required to return a death ......