State v. Carter

• Decision Date: 26 January 1973
• Citation: 299 A.2d 891
• Parties: STATE of Maine v. Ralph A. CARTER.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 891

299 A.2d 891

STATE of Maine v. Ralph A. CARTER.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Jan. 26, 1973.

Peter .w. Culley, Vernon, I. Arey, Asst. Attys. Gen., Augusta, for plaintiff.

Nissen & Westcott by Michael N. Westcott, Damariscotta, for defendant.

Before DUFRESNE, C. J., and WEBBER, WEATHERBEE, POMEROY, WERNICK and ARCHIBALD, JJ.

WERNICK, Justice.

In December of 1971 a Superior Court (Lincoln County) jury had found the defendant, Ralph A. Carter, guilty of felonious homicide punishable as murder. Defendant had seasonably appealed from the judgment of conviction. While the appeal, duly perfected, was pending for oral argument before the Law Court, the defendant died (on July 16, 1972).

Learning of defendant's death, the State filed a motion in the Law Court for dismissal of the appeal. The ground of the motion was that the death of the defendant

'render(s) moot . . . (the) issues raised by him in his appeal'

and

'. . . makes it impossible for . . . (the Law Court) to grant any effective remedy.'

The attorney for the deceased defendant-purporting to continue to appear in the proceeding notwithstanding that the party of record whom he had represented had ceased, by his death, to be a legal person-has opposed the granting of the motion to dismiss the appeal.

He maintains that (1) even though the defendant has died, the issues raised on appeal should be decided because they affect interests worthy of legal protection; and (2) in any event, should the appeal be dismissed because of defendant's death, the entire prosecution should be abated from its inception.

The questions thus precipitated have not been previously considered in this State.

In other jurisdictions there has appeared widespread acceptance of a general proposition that the indispensable feature of a criminal prosecution is the vindication of the criminal laws of the State through the ultimate imposition of punishment upon that human being whose conduct is shown to have violated them. On this approach, the issue of the validity, or correctness, of the adjudication that the defendant has committed criminal conduct is but a subsidiary aspect of a larger total project which the death of the defendant renders imposible of completion and, therefore, academic. By the application of this principle, which regards the criminal prosecution strictly in terms of the interests reasonably attributable to the State as prosecutor, the death of the defendant occurring while an appeal from the judgment of conviction is in process requires dismissal of the appeal. The appropriate cases appear in Annotations in 83 A.L.R.2d 864, et seq. and 9 A.L.R.3d 496, et seq.

To this general rule, prevailing in the overwhelming majority of jurisdictions, there have been isolated exceptions insofar as special circumstances might show that the interests of the State, as prosecutor, transcend punishment of the defendant personally,-as, for example, should the costs of the prosecution (or a fine, penalty or other forfeiture) be collectible against the estate of the deceased defendant. See: Wetzel v. Ohio, 371 U.S. 62, 83 S.Ct. 111, 9 L.Ed.2d 26 (1962). ¹

Another approach to the problem under consideration declines to give exclusively controlling effect to the end-result of whether defendant will be available to be punished. It allows the underlying issues concerning legal validity, or correctness, of the judgment of conviction to be regarded as capable of achieving critical legal importance dependent upon whether interests of defendant's family to protect the memory of the defendant, or his reputation while alive, are held sufficiently worthy of legal recognition to require final and definitive resolution of the questions raised by the appeal. City of Newark v. Pulverman, 12 M.J. 105, 95 A.2d 889 (1953).

In New Jersey such substantive policy could be the more readily announced by a Court, however, because the New Jersey Court rule, and statutory intendment, had already manifested recognition of the potential relevance of such interests, as derived from the defendant's side of the adversary proceeding, and had provided a specific procedural remedy to allow continuation of the adversary posture of the criminal proceeding, after the death of the defendant, by the interposition of another legal person as a party of record. ²

Yet, even independently of the existence of such legislative contribution, the approach of the New Jersey Court is a reminder that the State is only one side of the adversary proceeding which is a criminal prosecution; and, therefore, interests other than those solely of the State might have legitimate bearing upon the determination of whether the issues underlying the controversy have really become academic in all their legally recognizable aspects and practical effects.

In addition, the possibility is not to be foreclosed that particular situations might arise, by chance, in which a final judgment, if allowed to stand in the criminal prosecution itself, might have critical collateral bearing upon rights (personal or property) of other persons.

The foregoing factors suggest that appropriate disposition of a criminal prosecution, in light of the death of the defendant occurring while a judgment of conviction is under direct appellate review, should avoid allowing the judgment of conviction to become finally controlling were it to be decided that defendant's death requires dismissal of the appeal.

The overall problem now before us thus encompasses (1) evaluation of the totality of interests reasonably capable of being affected by the death of a defendant occurring during the course of a direct review (by appeal) of a judgment of conviction as intertwined with (2) difficulties arising from deficiencies of the current law of the State, procedurally or otherwise, to supply another legal person as party of record in place of the original defendant who by his death has ceased to be a cognizable legal person.

Our assessment of all these considerations leads us to formulate the following general principles to govern resolution of the problems created by the death of a defendant in a criminal prosecution occurring while prosecution is pending on direct review (by appeal) of the judgment...