Opinion ID: 867512
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Gross Disproportionality.

Text: ¶ 36 Davis was sentenced to serve fifty-two years in prison for having non-coerced sex with two post-pubescent teenage girls. This strikes the courtas it did the jurors, the trial judge, the pre-sentence report writer, and the girls' mothersas an extraordinarily long sentence. Many of the factors deemed important in determining that Bartlett's sentence was disproportionate to his crimes are also present here: (1) Davis's sexual relations with the girls involved neither actual nor threatened violence; in each instance the girls knew what they were doing and willingly participated. Indeed, the victims sought Davis out; all acts occurred after the victims went voluntarily to Davis's home. (2) Davis does not have an adult criminal record, nor has he committed any previous crimes against children. (3) Post-pubescent sexual conduct appears to be no less common today than it was in 1990. [5] (4) There is evidence in the record that Davis's intelligence and maturity level fell far below that of a normal young adult. (5) Like Bartlett, Davis was caught in the very broad sweep of the governing statute, which makes any sexual conduct with a person younger than fifteen years old by a person older than eighteen years old a dangerous crime against children, whether the offense is a rape-incest by a step-parent who forces sex on a trusting ward or a pedophile who uncontrollably preys upon young children, see State v. Taylor, 160 Ariz. 415, 773 P.2d 974 (1989), or the more benign boyfriend-girlfriend situation in which one party is older than eighteen and the other younger than fifteen. ¶ 37 We recognize society's strong interest in protecting children and understand and appreciate that it is the legislature's province to assess the appropriate punishment for crimes against children. But we cannot say that all incidents of sexual conduct are of equal seriousness and pose the same threat to their victims or to society. The broad range of offenses encompassed by the statute under which Davis was charged, coupled with the legislature's command in A.R.S. § 13-4037(B) and the Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, impose on us the duty to apply the law to the specific facts of the cases that come before us to determine the constitutionality of sentences imposed. After conducting that review, we conclude that Davis's conduct was swept up in the broad statutory terms, which, in turn, triggered the mandatory sentences imposed. The trial judge, the jury, the pre-sentence report writer, and even the victims' mothers all recognized the injustice of sentencing Davis to a fifty-two-year prison sentence with no possibility of early release for the crimes at issue in this case. We cannot ignore that injustice. While recognizing that many sex crimes against children may well justify such a sentence, others do not. We conclude that given the circumstances of Davis's offenses, the sentence imposed in this case appears to be grossly disproportionate to his crimes.