Without holding an evidentiary hearing, the district court examined each claim, found that each lacked merit, and dismissed the application. Prejean v. Blackburn, 570 F. Supp. 985 (W.D. La. 1983). On appeal, Prejean now raises five claims of constitutional dimension: first, that the death sentence imposed in this instance violates due process because it was affirmed by the Louisiana Supreme Court on the basis of nonrecord prejudicial information; second, that the execution of Prejean for a crime committed at age seventeen would violate an eighth amendment right protecting minors from execution; third, that the Louisiana Supreme Court's inadequate proportionality review of Prejean's sentence violated the eighth amendment; fourth, that Prejean, a black youth convicted of killing a white police officer, was condemned to die as a result of intentional racial discrimination; and fifth, that the district court erred in refusing to grant an evidentiary hearing on Prejean's claim that the prosecutor used peremptory challenges deliberately and systematically to exclude blacks from the petit jury.
The district court denied Prejean's petition. Prejean v. Blackburn, 570 F. Supp. 985, 999 (W.D.La. 1983). November 18, 1983:
Irrespective of the amendment, the absence of evident legislative consideration would raise serious concerns regarding the validity of the statute's application to defendant. See AMN,Inc. v. South Brunswick Township Rent Leveling Bd., 93 N.J. 518, 525 (1983) ("where it is clear that the drafters of a statute did not consider or even contemplate a specific situation," probable intent controls over plain language or "literalisms"); Guttenberg Sav. Loan Ass'n v. Rivera, supra, 85 N.J. at 626-27 n. 4 (court would not find legislative intent to modify mortgagee — sub-tenant relations with landlord-tenant legislation where there was no reference in the Act or at the legislative hearings); cf. Sheeran v. NationwideMut. Ins. Co., Inc., 80 N.J. 548, 556-57 (1979) (rejecting argument that the legislature did not intend statute to apply to situation subjudice by noting that the legislature had been made aware of such potential application at the bill's public hearings); Prejean v. Blackburn, 570 F. Supp. 985, 998 (W.D.La. 1983) (legislative intent to subject seventeen-year-old to death penalty found where state constitution made seventeen year olds adults for criminal court jurisdiction, eliminating need for waiver), aff'd, 743 F.2d 1091 (5th Cir. 1984). The imposition of capital punishment can occur only pursuant to an affirmative and conscious decision "by a democratically elected legislature," Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 175, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2926, 49 L.Ed.2d 859, 876 (1976), and surely not through inadvertence.