The Supreme Court today affirms the death penalty in People v. Landry, imposed on a white supremacist prisoner for the 1997 murder of another prisoner. In a unanimous opinion by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, the court also strikes a one-year sentence enhancement.
Among many other things, the court concludes the superior court correctly refused the defendant’s request to instruct the jury on duress because, statutorily, duress cannot be a defense to murder and because that elimination of the duress defense is constitutional.
Additionally, the court rejects a constitutional attack on a statute that makes it potentially a capital offense for an inmate serving a life sentence to commit a murder in less than the first degree. The court finds, “the legislative determination that life prisoners who commit fatal aggravated assaults are potentially deserving of death is a venerable one” and is appropriately based on the Legislature’s conclusion that the “particular status as life prisoners requires this exceptional measure to protect correctional officers and other inmates.”
