Roberts v. Louisiana

• Decision Date: 06 June 1977
• Docket Number: No. 76-5206,76-5206
• Citation: 431 U.S. 633,97 S.Ct. 1993,52 L.Ed.2d 637
• Parties: Harry ROBERTS, Petitioner, v. State of LOUISIANA
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

431 U.S. 633

97 S.Ct. 1993

52 L.Ed.2d 637

Harry ROBERTS, Petitioner,

v State of LOUISIANA.

No. 76-5206.

June 6, 1977.

PER CURIAM.

Petitioner Harry Roberts was indicted, tried, and convicted of the first-degree murder of Police Officer Dennis McInerney, who at the time of his death was engaged in the performance of his lawful duties. As required by a Louisiana statute, petitioner was sentenced to death. La.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 14:30(2) (1974).¹ On appeal, the Supreme Court of Louisiana affirmed his conviction and sentence. 331 So.2d 11 (1976). Roberts then filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in this Court. The petition presented the question whether Louisiana's mandatory death penalty could be imposed pursuant to his conviction of first-degree murder as defined in subparagraph (2) of § 14:30.

Shortly before that petition was filed, we held in another case (involving a different petitioner named Roberts) that Louisiana could not enforce its mandatory death penalty for a conviction of first-degree murder as defined in subparagraph (1) of § 14:30 of La.Rev.Stat.Ann. (1974). Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325, 96 S.Ct. 3001, 49 L.Ed.2d 974 (1976) (hereafter cited as Stanislaus Roberts for purposes of clarity). In the plurality opinion in that case, the precise question presented in this case was explicitly answered.²

This precise question was again answered by the Court in Washington v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 906, 96 S.Ct. 3214, 49 L.Ed.2d 1213 (1976). The petitioner in the Washington case had killed a policeman and was tried and sentenced to death under the same provision of the Louisiana statute as was the petitioner in the present case. We vacated the death sentence, holding: "Imposition and carrying out of the death penalty (in this case) constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Roberts v. Louisiana . . . ." Ibid. See also Sparks v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 905, 96 S.Ct. 3213, 49 L.Ed.2d 1212 (1976); Green v. Oklahoma, 428 U.S. 907, 96 S.Ct. 3216, 49 L.Ed.2d 1214 (1976).

Recognizing that this Court had already decided that a mandatory death sentence could not be imposed for the crime that Harry Roberts committed, the Attorney General of Louisiana initially conceded that "under this Court's decision in Stanislaus Roberts v. Louisiana, No. 75-5844, (the sentence of death in the present case) cannot be carried out unless, of course, this Court grants Louisiana's Application for Rehearing and modifies its former holding." Brief in Opposition 2-3. The Court nevertheless granted certiorari on November 8, 1976, 429 U.S. 938, 97 S.Ct. 352, 50 L.Ed.2d 307, and on November 29 limited the grant to the question "(w)hether the impostion and carrying out of the sentence of death for the crime of first-degree murder of a police officer under the law of Louisiana violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States." 429 U.S. 975, 97 S.Ct. 482, 50 L.Ed.2d 583.

In Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 304, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 2991, 49 L.Ed.2d 944 (1976), this Court held that "the fundamental respect for humanity underlying the Eighth Amendment . . . requires consideration of the character and record of the individual offender and the circumstances of the particular offense as a constitutionally indispensable part of the process of inflicting the penalty of death." In Stanislaus Roberts, supra, we made clear that this principle applies even where the crime of first-degree murder is narrowly defined. See n. 2, supra.

(1) To be sure, the fact that the murder victim was a peace officer performing his regular duties may be regarded as an aggravating circumstance. There is a special interest in affording protection to these public servants who regularly must risk their lives in order to guard the safety of other persons and property.³ But it is incorrect to suppose that no miti- gating circumstances can exist when the victim is a police officer. Circumstances such as the youth of the offender, the absence of any prior conviction, the influence of drugs, alcohol, or extreme emotional disturbance, and even the existence of circumstances which the offender reasonably believed provided a moral justification for his conduct are all examples of mitigating facts which might attend the killing of a peace officer and which are considered relevant in other jurisdictions.⁴

(2) As we emphasized repeatedly in Stanislaus Roberts and its companion cases decided last Term, it is essential that the capital-sentencing decision allow for consideration of whatever mitigating circumstances may be relevant to either the particular offender or the particular offense.⁵ Because the Louisiana statute does not allow for consideration of particularized mitigating factors, it is unconstitutional.⁶

Accordingly, we hold that the death sentence imposed upon this petitioner violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments and must be set aside. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana is reversed insofar as it upholds the death sentence upon petitioner. The case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.⁷

It is so ordered.

Mr. Chief Justice BURGER, dissenting.

I would sustain the Louisiana statute and I therefore dissent on the basis of my dissenting statement in Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325, 337, 96 S.Ct. 3001, 3008, 49 L.Ed.2d 974 (1976), and that of Mr. Justice WHITE, in Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 306, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 2992, 49 L.Ed.2d 944 (1976).

Mr. Justice BLACKMUN, with whom Mr. Justice WHITE and Mr. Justice REHNQUIST join, dissenting.

The Court, feeling itself bound by the plurality opinion in Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325, 96 S.Ct. 3001, 49 L.Ed.2d 974 (1976) (hereafter Stanislaus Roberts ), has painted itself into a corner. I did not join that plurality opinion, and I decline to be so confined. I therefore dissent from the Court's disposition of the present case and from its holding that the mandatory imposition of the death penalty for killing a peace officer, engaged in the performance of his lawful duties, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. I would uphold the State's power to impose such a punishment under La.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 14:30(2) (1974), and I would reject any statements or intimations to the contrary in the Court's prior cases.

The per curiam opinion asserts that "the precise question presented in this case was explicitly answered" in Roberts. Ante, at 635. It also relies on the summary disposition of Washington v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 906, 96 S.Ct. 3214, 49 L.Ed.2d 1213 (1976), where a death sentence that had been imposed under § 14:30(2) was vacated and where it was stated that the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Ante, at 635. Finally, the per curiam states that "it is essential that the capital-sentencing decision allow for consideration of whatever mitigating circumstances may be relevant to either the particular offender or the particular offense." Ante, at 637. Since § 14:30(2) does not allow for consideration of mitigating factors, the per curiam strikes down the death sentence imposed on petitioner.

In my view, the question of the constitutionality of Louisiana's mandatory death penalty for killing a peace officer was not answered in Roberts. Washington may be said to be a summary ruling on the merits, but that case was decided without the benefit of plenary consideration, and without focusing on the identity and activity of the victim. I believe its result to be incorrect as a constitutional matter and I would disapprove and withhold its further application.

Stanislaus Roberts was charged and convicted under a different subsection, that is, § 14:30(1) of the Louisiana first-degree murder statute. See 428 U.S., at 327, 96 S.Ct., at 3003. See also ante, at 634-635. Subsection (1) provided a mandatory death penalty in the case where the killer had a specific intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm and was engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of aggravated kidnaping, aggravated rape, or armed robbery. See ante, at 634 n. 1. Subsection (2), in contrast, provides that first-degree murder is committed when the killer has a specific intent to kill, or to inflict great bodily harm upon, a fireman or a peace officer who is engaged in the performance of his lawful duties. Ibid. The two subsections obviously should involve quite different considerations with regard to the lawfulness of a mandatory death penalty, even accepting the analysis set forth in the joint opinions of last Term.^* Thus, to the extent that the plurality in Roberts alluded to subsections of the Louisiana law that were not before the Court, those statements are nonbinding dicta. It is indisputable that carefully focused consideration was not given to the special problem of a mandatory death sentence for one who has intentionally killed a police officer engaged in the performance of his lawful duties. I therefore approach this case as a new one, not predetermined and governed by the plurality in Roberts.

Washington may present a different problem. It did decide the issue now before the Court, but it did so without the benefit of full briefing and argument, and it was one of three pending Louisiana cases treated as a cluster and routinely remanded at the Term's end in the immediate wake of Roberts. Because an explicit finding was made that the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment, perhaps Washington is not to be treated in the same way as summary affirmances were treated in Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 670-671, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 1359, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974). I would simply inquire, as to Washington, whether its holding should not be overruled now that the Court has had the benefit of more careful and complete consideration of the issue.

On the merits, for reasons I...