1982 death penalty statute burdened right to trial and right not to plead guilty, and thus held unconstitutional
How later courts described this case
- 1982 death penalty statute burdened right to trial and right not to plead guilty, and thus held unconstitutional
- state’s newly enacted death penalty law violated the state constitution because the death penalty could only be imposed after a jury trial, thus coercing guilty pleas and impermissibly violating a defendants’ rights to demand a jury trial and against self-incrimination
- death penalty statute unconstitutional because it needlessly chilled defendant’s Article 12 right to a trial by jury and his right against self-incrimination
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Wilkins, J.
(dissenting). We should not answer the reported questions. Four years ago, when a district attorney sought this court’s decision on the constitutionality of a capital punishment statute, I said that “I alone among my colleagues believe that this court, in its discretion, should not pass on the constitution *181 ality of the capital punishment statute.” District Attorney for the Suffolk Dist. v. Watson, 381 Mass. 648, 673 (1980) (Wilkins, J., concurring). Two colleagues now agree with me that it is premature to answer questions of the same general character. Post (Nolan, J., dissenting, with whom Lynch, J., joins). They go forward, however, as I did in 1980, to comment on substantive issues. I decline to do so.
The issues should be decided, when and if they arise, in specific cases. The court’s approach unnecessarily “presents a constitutional confrontation between its views and those of the Legislature. I would have preferred not to identify such a conflict unless and until the circumstances of a particular case made it unavoidable.” District Attorney for the Suffolk Dist. v. Watson, supra at 674 (Wilkins, J., concurring).