Opinion ID: 2680004
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: law court authority in the sentencing process

Text: [¶62] After carefully analyzing the legal requirements for proportionality, rather than simply remanding for the trial court to apply the law correctly, the Court today suggests that the sentence to be determined upon remand should not exceed thirteen and a half years. [¶63] To the extent that the Court’s suggestion is intended to provide assistance to the trial court in addressing the proportionality analysis that is required in this instance due to the imposition of multiple consecutive sentences, the Court acts within its authority to provide guidance regarding the application of the sentencing statutes. [¶64] To be clear, however, it is not within the authority of the Law Court to sentence any individual who has been convicted of a crime. The Court’s authority is limited to assuring that the law is followed, including by assuring 37 accurate application of the sentencing factors, facilitating rehabilitation when that is possible, promoting respect for the law, and promoting the development of rational and just sentencing criteria. See 15 M.R.S. § 2154 (2012). The only relief that is authorized when the Law Court has determined that there was an error in sentencing is as follows: the Court “must remand the case to the court that imposed the sentence for any further proceedings that could have been conducted prior to the imposition of the sentence under review and for resentencing on the basis of such further proceedings.” 15 M.R.S. § 2156(1-A) (2012) (emphasis added).9 [¶65] Although I certainly understand the intent of the Court to provide guidance to the trial judge following remand, I remain concerned that the Court’s suggestion in this context could be misunderstood as a mandate. Therefore, I write to stress that it would be inaccurate to read the Court’s suggested range as setting a hard limit on the sentence that could be imposed on remand. 9 The Law Court once had the statutory authority to set the sentence to be imposed on remand. See 15 M.R.S.A. § 2156(1) (Supp. 1989) (authorizing the Supreme Judicial Court to “[s]ubstitute for the sentence under review any other disposition that was open to the sentencing court, provided however, that the sentence substituted shall not be more severe than the sentence appealed”). That authority was eliminated by the Legislature, see P.L. 1991, ch. 525, §§ 3, 4 (effective June 30, 1991), after the Court specifically reduced the sentences of sex offenders in a pair of sentence appeals, see State v. Clark, 591 A.2d 462 (Me. 1991) (on obvious error review, reducing a sentence of imprisonment for gross sexual assault from thirty years to fifteen years); State v. Michaud, 590 A.2d 538 (Me. 1991) (reducing a sentence of imprisonment for two counts of gross sexual misconduct from forty years to fifteen years, all but twelve suspended); see also State v. Lewis, 590 A.2d 149 (Me. 1991) (reducing a sentence of imprisonment in an arson case from twenty years, all but fifteen suspended, to ten years, all but eight suspended); State v. Gosselin, 600 A.2d 1108 (Me. 1991) (vacating and remanding, without ordering the replacement sentence, a forty-year sentence imposed upon a manslaughter conviction after the 1991 repeal of section 2156(1)). 38 [¶66] Finally, I note that the Court’s suggested sentencing range is presented in the absence of a complete background investigation of Theodore Stanislaw. I would not offer such a range, suggesting that the maximum sentence should not exceed thirteen and a half years, in the absence of that information.