People v. Spears

• Decision Date: 20 January 1983
• Docket Number: Cr. 22083
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 655 P.2d 1289 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Marty Don SPEARS, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 454

188 Cal.Rptr. 454

33 Cal.3d 279, 655 P.2d 1289

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Marty Don SPEARS, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 22083.

Supreme Court of California In Bank.

Jan. 20, 1983.

Quin Denvir, State Public Defender, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, and Mark L. Christiansen, Deputy State Public Defender, for defendant and appellant.

George Deukmejian, Atty. Gen., Robert L. Philibosian, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Arnold O. Overoye, Asst. Atty. Gen., Gregory W. Baugher and Wanda Hill Rouzan, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

MOSK, Justice.

In People v. Davis (1981) 29 Cal.3d 814, 827-832, 176 Cal.Rptr. 521, 633 P.2d 186, we held as a matter of statutory construction that the former death penalty law (Stats.1977, ch. 316, p. 1255) did not authorize imposing the sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole on minors. Here the sole issue is whether that construction remains valid under the amendments to the death penalty law adopted by initiative at the 1978 General Election. As will appear, we answer that question in the affirmative.

Defendant was charged with two counts of murder with special circumstances, and accompanying felonies. The crimes were committed on June 25, 1979. Defendant entered pleas of guilty to all charges, and was sentenced on the murder counts to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment without possibility of parole. It was stipulated that he was 17 years old at the time of the crimes. Other facts are not relevant to this appeal, which challenges only the legality of the sentence.

A point-by-point comparison of the present and former death penalty laws demonstrates that our holding in Davis remains applicable today. We began (29 Cal.3d at p. 827, 176 Cal.Rptr. 521, 633 P.2d 186) by observing that former Penal Code section 190.5, like all its predecessors since 1921, explicitly exempted minors from the death penalty. Present section 190.5 ¹ provides an identical exemption. Although recognizing that the 1977 statute did not also explicitly exempt minors from the penalty of life imprisonment without possibility of parole, we concluded that "neither the language nor the history of the statute supports an interpretation that would authorize imposing that harsh penalty on persons under 18." (29 Cal.3d at p. 827, 176 Cal.Rptr. 521, 633 P.2d 186.)

A similar analysis leads to the same conclusion here. We noted in Davis (id. at pp. 827-828, 176 Cal.Rptr. 521, 633 P.2d 186) that the 1977 statute was equivocal on the question whether a minor could be sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. We pointed out that former section 190.1, the "cornerstone" of the statute's procedural structure, specifically limited its application to cases "in which the death penalty may be imposed pursuant to this chapter," while subsequent provisions were not so limited (e.g., former § 190.4, subd. (a)). The present statute contains identical provisions (§§ 190.1, 190.4, subd. (a)), and the ambiguity therefore persists.

In Davis we undertook to resolve that ambiguity by applying a number of well-settled canons of construction. First we reviewed the history of the 1977 statute in order to expose its intent, which was to remedy the constitutional infirmities of the prior mandatory death penalty law (see Rockwell v. Superior Court (1976) 18 Cal.3d 420, 134 Cal.Rptr. 650, 556 P.2d 1101) by providing a penalty phase at which the trier of fact could weigh certain mitigating and aggravating circumstances and in appropriate cases impose the penalty of life imprisonment without possibility of parole as an alternative to death. Having identified that "specific and limited legislative intent," we observed that it was "unrelated to any desire to impose harsher sanctions on minors." (29 Cal.3d at p. 829, 176 Cal.Rptr. 521, 633 P.2d 186.) We reasoned that "Significantly, the Legislature retained unchanged the language exempting minors from the death penalty (former § 190.5), and made not the slightest suggestion that it intended the new penalty to be imposed on minors as an alternative to an ordinary life sentence. Clearly, the Legislature enacted this statute not as a means of increasing the penalty applicable to minors convicted of murder, but solely as a method to ameliorate the unconstitutionally harsh effect of the former death procedures applicable exclusively to adults." (Id. at p. 830, 176 Cal.Rptr. 521, 633 P.2d 186.)

The same reasoning holds today. Much is made of the assertion in the ballot pamphlet that the 1978 initiative was designed to produce the nation's "toughest, most effective" death penalty law. (Ballot Pamp., argument in favor of Prop. 7, Gen.Elec. (Nov. 7, 1978), p. 34.) We do not doubt that the purpose of the initiative was to "toughen" the existing punishment for murder in several respects: e.g., it increased the severity of the sentence for second degree murder and for first degree murder when the penalty imposed is life imprisonment with possibility of parole (§ 190), and it expanded both the number of "special circumstances" that will support the penalties of death or life imprisonment without possibility of parole (§ 190.2, subd. (a)) and the category of persons derivatively subject to such penalties (id., subd. (b)).

Yet however clear this purpose, it is equally clear that the initiative was not intended, in addition, to subject minors for the first time to the penalty of life imprisonment without possibility of parole. The 1977 statute may well have been meant to "ameliorate" the death penalty law and the 1978 initiative to "toughen" it, but the net effect of each was the same as far as minors are concerned. As did the Court of Appeal in People v. Polk (1982) 131 Cal.App.3d 764, 776, 182 Cal.Rptr. 847, "We have examined the text of the initiative, the summary prepared by the Attorney General, the legislative analyst's analysis, and the arguments as set forth in California Voters Pamphlet, General Election, November 7, 1978, and find no indication therein of any intention on the part of the framers thereof to modify the law concerning the punishment of minors." The legislative history, in short, is totally silent on the point. No more than in Davis can we rewrite that history to accommodate those who now wish, as an afterthought, that it read otherwise. (See also In re Jeanice D. (1980) 28 Cal.3d 210, 220 & fn. 10, 168 Cal.Rptr. 455, 617 P.2d 1087.)

Secondly, construing the statute to avoid surplusage, we stressed in Davis that a contrary interpretation would require useless penalty hearings. Former section 190.4, subdivision (a), made a penalty hearing mandatory whenever a defendant was found guilty of first degree murder with special circumstances, yet minors were exempt from the sanction of death. Because the only penalty that could in fact be imposed on a minor after such a hearing would therefore be life imprisonment without possibility of parole, the proceeding would be "unnecessary, inappropriate and a palpable waste of judicial resources." (29 Cal.3d at p. 831, 176 Cal.Rptr. 521, 633 P.2d 186.) Again the 1978 initiative has changed nothing. Penalty hearings are still mandatory upon a finding of guilt with special circumstances (§ 190.4, subd. (a), par. 4), but minors are still exempt from the death penalty. As in Davis (ibid.), the lack of an exception for minors in the statutory requirement of a penalty hearing "further demonstrates the absence of legislative intent to provide...