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Olsen v. State4/14/2003
nalty. In particular, the proportionality review substantially eliminates the possibility that a person will be sentenced to die by the action of an aberrant jury. If a time comes when juries generally do not impose the death sentence in a certain kind of murder case, the appellate review procedures assure that no defendant convicted under such circumstances will suffer a sentence of death."
Finally, at page 207, 96 S.Ct. at 2941, the Court said:
"* * * In addition, the review function of the Supreme Court of Georgia affords additional assurance that the concerns that prompted our decision in Furman are not present to any significant degree in the Georgia procedure applied here."
The concurring opinion of Justice White, with whom Chief Justice Burger and Justice Rehnquist joined, also stressed the state supreme court review of the death penalty as "[a]n important aspect of the new Georgia legislative scheme * * *."
In Proffitt v. Florida, supra, 428 U.S. 242, 96 S.Ct. 2960, 49 L.Ed.2d 913, the Court, in approving the Florida death penalty statutes, called attention to the provision § 921.141(4), F.S.A., by stating that this automatic review provision is designed to assure that the death penalty will not be imposed on a capriciously selected group of convicted defendants. While the provision is not structured in the same fashion as that of Georgia, it was held by the United States Supreme Court that the manner in which the Florida Supreme Court reviews each death sentence does ensure similar results in similar cases, citing State v. Dixon, 283 So.2d 1, 10 (Fla., 1973).
The certiorari petition in Proffitt asserted that such a skimpy provision made the role of the state supreme court necessarily subjective and unpredictable. The United States Supreme Court responded to that by stating:
"* * * While it may be true that that court has not chosen to formulate a rigid objective test as its standard of review for all cases, it does not follow that the appellate review process is ineffective or arbitrary. In fact, it is apparent that the Florida court has undertaken responsibly to perform its function of death sentence review with a maximum of rationality and consistency. For example, it has several times compared the circumstances of a case under review with those of previous cases in which it has assessed the imposition of death sentences. By following this procedure the Florida court has in effect adopted the type of proportionality review mandated by the Georgia statute. And any suggestion that the Florida court engages in only cursory or rubber-stamp review of death penalty cases is totally controverted by the fact that it has vacated over one-third of the death sentences that have come before it. * * *" Id., 428 U.S. at 258-259, 96 S.Ct. at 2969.
We conclude and hold that the action of the Wyoming State Legislature in specifying the nature of our review does not purport to take away any of our powers or jurisdiction. The judicial function of making the requisite determinations on review are [sic] left to this court. It would be something else if the legislature enacted a statute whereby the legislature would review the trial proceedings; it then would be exercising powers properly belonging to the courts. We consider the challenged statutory sections to be a proper exercise of legislative power to provide for the sentencing of convicted first degree murders. This does not mean that under the Wyoming Rules of Criminal Procedure we could not conduct the same review as that directed by the legislature. If we disregarded the legislative directions, we would still be required to conduct a review within the standards set out in Gregg and Proffitt, as did the Supre
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