Opinion ID: 2178431
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Error in sentencing because of Court's consideration of facts arising out of other trials.

Text: Upon motion of the State for sentence of the defendant and his two companions, the Court noted that perhaps it would be well to take them up in the order tried and further stated: They are 3 cases involving 3 separate defendants, and the record may show that the offenses all arise out of a series of related transactions, essentially all offenses are committed in the same location on the same day and with the same prosecutrix, and they were all tried before this Court at this term and all 3 were fully tried to a Jury. So the Court is taking cognizance of what was developed at those 3 trials as far as facts are concerned. We said in Green v. State, 1968, Me., 247 A.2d 117; The constitutional due process clause does not freeze the sentencing procedure in the mold of trial procedure, and a sentencing judge may exercise a wide discretion in the sources and types of evidence used to assist him in determining the kind and extent of punishment to be imposed within the limits fixed by law. But we further cautioned that a sentence substantially predicated upon assumptions concerning past criminal activity untrue in fact or upon misinformation as to other material facts, either as a result of carelessness or design, would be in violation of due process. In Williams v. State of Oklahoma, 1959, 358 U.S. 576, 79 S.Ct. 421, 3 L.Ed.2d 516, the Court held that, once guilt of the accused has been properly established, a sentencing judge in his determination of choice of sentence may consider responsible unsworn or out-of-court information relative to circumstances of the crime and to the convicted person's life and characteristics. There was no abuse of discretion or deprivation of constitutional due process in the instant case because the Justice below took cognizance of the evidentiary development concerning the facts in the cases of each of three defendants who were companions in crime, although they involved separate trials. A broad comprehensive analysis of the criminal scene as the same may have been shaded or illuminated to whatever degree by the repeated versions of the same witnesses under oath, albeit at separate trials, could only serve to put into proper focus the whole of this revolting sexual assault. It was proper for the Court to secure a true picture, and not a distorted one, of all the surrounding circumstances so that a more enlightened and just sentence could be assessed against the defendant. No showing has been made that such procedure resulted in harm instead of benefit to the appellant.