State v. Logan, 21616
| Decision Date | 04 January 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 21616,21616 |
| Citation | 286 S.E.2d 125,277 S.C. 252 |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | The STATE, Appellant, v. Larry LOGAN, Respondent. |
Atty. Gen. Daniel R. McLeod, Asst. Atty. Gen. Lindy P. Funkhouser and Senior Asst. Atty. Gen. Brian P. Gibbes, Columbia, and Sol. James O. Dunn, Conway, for appellant.
David I. Bruck, Columbia, and Jack M. Scoville, Jr., and Douglas L. Hinds, Georgetown, for respondent.
The sole question presented in this appeal involves the applicability of the current death penalty statute to a crime committed prior to its effective date.
A brief history of our present death penalty statute for murder, as influenced by court decisions, is necessary in order to focus upon the issue now before the Court.
The long established public policy of this State, with reference to the death penalty for murder, was set forth in Section 16-52 of the 1962 Code of Laws, which provided that "whoever is guilty of murder shall suffer the punishment of death," but upon recommendation of mercy by the jury the punishment was reduced to life imprisonment. However, as pointed out in Hitter v. McLeod, 274 S.C. 616, 266 S.E.2d 418, the application of the death penalty under procedures such as provided in Section 16-52, supra, was invalidated by the United States Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972).
In 1974, the General Assembly sought to provide for an effective enforcement of the death penalty and enacted amendments to Section 16-52, specifying the circumstances under which the penalty of death for murder could be enforced. 58 Statutes at Large 2361. These amendments resulted from efforts to cure the constitutional defect condemned in Furman.
Subsequently, in response to the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 49 L.Ed.2d 944 and Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325, 96 S.Ct. 3001, 49 L.Ed.2d 974, we declared the mandatory death penalty provisions of Section 16-52, as amended in 1974, unconstitutional. State v. Rumsey, 267 S.C. 236, 226 S.E.2d 894.
However, an effective procedure for the enforcement of the death penalty was finally enacted in this State on June 8, 1977 (now Section 16-3-20 et seq., Supplement to the 1976 Code of Laws), some nine (9) months after respondent allegedly committed the murder of which he is here charged. See State v. Shaw, 273 S.C. 194, 255 S.E.2d 799.
Respondent was indicted for murder in the commission of an armed robbery. The State noticed the intention to seek the death penalty, under the penalty provisions of Section 16-3-20, supra, enacted after the commission of the alleged murder. Respondent then moved for an order prohibiting the State from seeking the death penalty since the alleged crime, admittedly, occurred at a time when the State had no operative death penalty statute. The trial judge agreed and granted respondent's motion, holding that the only penalty for murder in this State on the date of the alleged crime was life imprisonment and to allow the imposition of the subsequently enacted death penalty would violate the constitutional provisions, both State and Federal, against ex post facto laws. The State has appealed. We affirm.
It is undisputed that the maximum punishment for murder in South Carolina was life imprisonment when the alleged crime was committed; and that an operative death penalty was not reinstated in this State until approximately nine (9) months after respondent allegedly committed murder.
Since there was no operative death penalty statute in this State when respondent allegedly committed the crime charged, the act of respondent could not trigger the death penalty without violating the ex post facto prohibition against retroactive laws creating a greater punishment than would have attached under the law at the time of the offense.
The State argues, however, relying on Dobbert v. Florida, 432 U.S. 282, 97 S.Ct. 2290, 53 L.Ed.2d...
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...ameliorative, but in fact imposes a greater punishment than was available at the time the crime was committed. In State v. Logan, 277 S.C. 252, 286 S.E.2d 125 (1982), the Supreme Court of South Carolina faced an ex post facto challenge under facts similar to the present case. In Logan, the ......
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State v. Spann, 21992
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