Opinion ID: 1964673
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Challenge to the Habitual Criminal Statute

Text: The defendant argues that he should not have been subject to the imposition of an enhanced sentence pursuant to the Rhode Island Habitual Criminal Statute, § 12-19-21. This statute in pertinent part provides as follows: (a) If any person who has been previously convicted in this or any other state of two or more felony offenses arising from separate and distinct incidents and sentenced on two or more such occasions to serve a term in prison shall, after the convictions and sentences, be convicted in this state of any offense punished by imprisonment for more than one year, such person shall be deemed an `habitual criminal.' Upon conviction, the person deemed a habitual criminal shall be punished by imprisonment in the adult correctional institutions for a term not exceeding twenty-five (25) years, in addition to any sentence imposed for the offense of which he or she was last convicted. Section 12-19-21 further provides that, upon a finding that a defendant is an habitual offender, she or he: shall be sentenced by the court to an additional consecutive term of imprisonment of not exceeding twenty-five (25) years; and provided further, that the court shall order the defendant to serve a minimum number of years of the sentence before he or she becomes eligible for parole. The defendant challenges the constitutionality of this statute on the ground that it establishes a separate offense and violates the constitutional protection against double jeopardy. This Court has specifically rejected a virtually identical argument set forth in State v. Tregaskis, 540 A.2d 1022, 1026 (R.I.1988). There we stated that the enhanced sentencing statute did not create a separate offense and that it did not violate either equal protection or due process under the state or federal constitutions. Finally, defendant argues that his presentation as a habitual criminal violates the due-process and equal-protection clauses, article I, section 2, and the proportionality clause, article I, section 8, of the Rhode Island Constitution. At the outset, we note that habitual-offender statutes have long been upheld as constitutional as long as the status of being a habitual offender is not considered a separate offense. Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357, 98 S.Ct. 663, 54 L.Ed.2d 604 (1978); State v. Sitko, 457 A.2d 260 (R.I.1983). In essence, defendant now argues that the state arbitrarily elected to present him as a habitual offender and, in so doing, violated his constitutional rights of due process and equal protection. The Supreme Court in Bordenkircher rejected the argument that a prosecutor's decision to proceed under a habitual-offender statute violated the defendant's due-process rights. 434 U.S. at 364, 98 S.Ct. at 668-69, 54 L.Ed.2d at 611. The Court recognized that the `conscious exercise of some selectivity in enforcement is not in itself a federal constitutional violation so long as the selection was [not] deliberately based upon an unjustifiable standard such as race, religion, or other arbitrary classification.' Id. In the absence of such an `unjustifiable standard' in the instant case, Bordenkircher dictates that defendant's equal-protection and due-process claims are without basis. See also State v. DeMasi, 420 A.2d 1369 (R.I.1980) (in which we rejected the defendant's argument that decision to charge him as a habitual offender violated equal protection). Tregaskis, 540 A.2d at 1026. Our holding in Tregaskis substantially rebuts nearly all the arguments made by defendant, including his assertion of selective prosecution in respect to this particular defendant. He suggested that this provision has been used to penalize defendants who choose to demand a trial. Moreover, defendant contends that the Department of the Attorney General has exercised its discretion to pursue habitual criminal proceedings only against men. Neither of these contentions has merit. In United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 470, 116 S.Ct. 1480, 1489, 134 L.Ed.2d 687, 702 (1996), the Supreme Court of the United States declined to review prosecutors' decisions in the absence of clear evidence which demonstrated both a discriminatory effect and a discriminatory purpose. To this end it would be necessary to show that similarly situated individuals were not prosecuted under this provision. The defendant has failed to establish that any similarly situated person with a record either identical or comparable to that of defendant, whether male or female, has not been subjected to the enhanced sentence provision of § 12-19-21. The trial justice in this case, made the following comment about the use of the statute in respect to this defendant. I don't know whether or not the State uses the habitual-offender notice as a so-called `bargaining chip.' I don't have any evidence before me that would so demonstrate it. The allegation you make, at least as I read it in your papers, is that the State seeks to punish those who go to trial with the habitual-offender label and rewards those who dispose of their cases short of trial, and rewards them with the lesser recommendation than they otherwise might make after trial by way of sentencing; awards [ sic ] them, also, by declining to press the habitual-offender category. We know, from much of the case law, irrespective of habitual offender allegations, that those who elect to take advantage of their constitutional rights to go to trial occasionally are meted out sentences that are different than what they otherwise might have been had they pled guilty prior to trial. The Court's interpretation is that that is not as much a vindictive punishment to the man or woman who elects to go to trial as it is a reward for the defendant who acknowledges his or her culpability at the outset and begins the trip towards the rehabilitative process. The courts having said that is not impermissible; and, too, at trial, things come out during the course of that evidence, that casts a different light on what a sentence would appropriately be than might not be disclosed prior to a trial. I disagree that the State uses this as a `punishment chip,' a `bargaining chip.' I don't have any particular evidence of that before me. And as I said    the Statute, 12-19-21, does not oblige the trial court, even though it may designate the defendant as an habitual-offender, to sentence such an offender to the 25-year maximum. I have discretion, depending, again, upon the nature of the individual who stands before the Court and his historical criminal record, as presented, together with whatever other factors generally are involved in the sentencing process. In connection with the argument that you make in your memorandum that this is a selective prosecution, I don't see it before me in the papers and exhibits that you have filed. If Mr. Clarke [ sic ] has been somehow unfairly selected, at least in your view, I don't think he's been unfairly selected to be categorized as a habitual-offender; and, in fact, based upon his record, quite to the contrary: He has been quite fairly selected. If anybody, in hindsight at this juncture of the proceedings, deserves to be looked upon as a habitual offender, it is Mr. Clarke [ sic ]. A recitation of defendant's remarkable record of criminal activities would certainly justify the comment of the trial justice. As earlier indicated, defendant, while serving a sentence at the ACI, was convicted of the second-degree murder of another inmate on November 2, 1974, for which he was initially sentenced to death. That sentence was vacated after the Rhode Island death penalty was declared unconstitutional in State v. Cline, 121 R.I. 299, 397 A.2d 1309 (1979). The defendant later was resentenced to a term of life imprisonment, and his conviction was affirmed in State v. Clark, 423 A.2d 1151 (R.I.1980). Before the stabbing death of a fellow inmate, defendant, on July 9, 1969, raped a young female college student after seizing her in the stairwell to her apartment. He was convicted of this attack and sentenced to fifteen years incarceration at the ACI. His conviction was affirmed in State v. Clark, 112 R.I. 270, 275, 308 A.2d 792, 795 (1973). It was while serving this sentence that defendant committed the murder in 1974. The state also presented evidence of other offenses committed by defendant while he was an inmate at the ACI, including escape, possession of drugs, and possession of weapons. The defendant presented no evidence other than his assertion that any similarly situated individual, male or female, was absolved from prosecution under the habitual-offender statute. In respect to defendant's double jeopardy claim, it has long been established that there is no double jeopardy bar to the use of prior convictions in sentencing an habitual or persistent offender. See, e.g., Caspari v. Bohlen, 510 U.S. 383, 391, 114 S.Ct. 948, 954, 127 L.Ed.2d 236, 246 (1994); Spencer v. Texas, 385 U.S. 554, 560, 87 S.Ct. 648, 651, 17 L.Ed.2d 606, 611 (1967) and cases cited therein. Consequently, there is no double jeopardy violation in the implementation of the Rhode Island enhanced penalty statute. Therefore, defendant's contentions concerning the invalidity of the habitual-offender statute and the impropriety of its application to him under the facts of the case at bar must be rejected.