Opinion ID: 853704
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Should These Have Been Mitigating Circumstances?

Text: Sensback first argues that the trial court failed to consider three mitigating circumstances. A. Age as a Mitigating Factor. Sensback argues that the court failed to consider that she was eighteen years old when she committed the crime. While the State argues that her conduct in planning the crime was that of a cunning adult, and Sensback contends her naïve actions after the crime were evidence of her immaturity, we are not convinced by either argument. Age is neither a statutory nor a per se mitigating factor. There are cunning children and there are naïve adults. Unfortunately, murders committed by eighteen-year-olds are more common than they used to be. At eighteen, Sensback is beyond the age at which the law commands special treatment by virtue of youth. [3] To be sure, Sensback cites cases in which youth was a mitigator, but these involved younger defendants, sentences that were both enhanced and consecutive, or lesser crimes than murder. See Trowbridge v. State, 717 N.E.2d 138 (Ind. 1999) (sentences on all counts reduced to presumptive where trial court failed to consider fourteen-year-old's age as a mitigating factor and sentenced defendant to maximum sentences); Carter v. State, 686 N.E.2d 1254 (Ind.1997)(defendant's age of fourteen not discussed in sentencing order); Walton v. State, 650 N.E.2d 1134 (Ind.1995)(sentence of two consecutive sixty-year terms for double murder where defendant was sixteen years old and had no prior history was manifestly unreasonable); Widener, 659 N.E.2d 529 (eighteen-year old defendant sentenced to consecutive sentences of sixty years and ten years for murder and conspiracy to commit robbery reduced to concurrent fifty years and ten years); Hill v. State, 499 N.E.2d 1103 (Ind.1986)(fifty-year sentence, where presumptive was thirty, for class A burglary reduced to thirty-five years for eighteen-year-old in his first adult felony conviction). It was well within the court's discretion to find that Sensback's age was not a significant mitigating factor. B. Lesser Role in the Offense. Sensback says that the judge should have considered her lesser role in the crime as a mitigating factor in that she did not inflict the fatal blows. A lesser role in the crime may be a mitigating factor. See Edgecomb v. State, 673 N.E.2d 1185 (Ind.1996); Widener, 659 N.E.2d at 534. The State argues that this potential mitigating factor is disputed in the record and therefore the court is not required to consider it as mitigating. See Battles v. State, 688 N.E.2d 1230, 1236-37 (Ind.1997)(court may not ignore mitigating circumstances clearly supported by the record). In Edgecomb, though the defendant provided the information to her co-defendant that led to the murder of defendant's neighbor, she did not enter the victim's house and did not actively participate in the fatal beating. Edgecomb 673 N.E.2d at 1193, 1199. In Widener, though the defendant shot the victim, he did not initiate the plan nor formulate the method that was used. Widener, 659 N.E.2d at 534. By contrast, Sensback chose the victim (her own aunt), conceived of the plan to rob her, provided the car to get to the house, gained entry by pretending to come for a visit, was present in the house while Keith assaulted her aunt, acted as look-out, alerted Keith to the fact that the victim was still alive, and completed the robbery while Keith killed her. In light of the magnitude of her other involvement, the fact that she did not actually wield the hammer is not enough to be considered a significant mitigating factor. C. Admission of Guilt. Sensback argues that her guilty plea is a significant mitigating factor. While a guilty plea is not enough to prove remorse, it can show an acceptance of responsibility for one's actions. Scheckel v. State, 655 N.E.2d 506, 511 (Ind.1995). Certainly, the plea saves court time and spares the victim's family the trauma of a trial. Id. Where the State reaps a substantial benefit from the defendant's act of pleading guilty, the defendant deserves to have a substantial benefit returned. Id. As for a guilty plea showing acceptance of responsibility, the court in Scheckel considered this circumstance as at least partially confirm[ing] the mitigating evidence regarding ... character. Id. Thus in Scheckel, to bolster the inference that the plea represented acceptance of responsibility, the court heard from family, friends, co-workers, and also considered objective facts of the defendant's behavior at work and at trial. Id. Sensback offered nothing but counsel's argument. A guilty plea is not automatically a significant mitigating factor. [4] The State further argues that Sensback received her benefit due in that the State dropped the robbery and auto theft counts in exchange for her guilty plea to the felony murder charge. Sensback correctly responds that the robbery charge would have been a lesser included offense, and thus she could not have been convicted for both felony murder and robbery, thus leaving only a potential three years for auto theft. She might or might not be right about the probability that life without parole might have been imposed. The record reveals that Sensback originally pled guilty on August 26, 1998, and the plea included the State's agreement to drop the robbery and auto theft charges. A week later, Sensback sought to withdraw her guilty plea, so the prosecutor filed a request for life without parole. On October 16, 1998, Sensback withdrew her motion to withdraw her guilty plea. While Sensback now argues that the likelihood of being sentenced to life without parole was too remote a possibility to be adequate consideration for her plea, there was a time when she appeared to consider it worth avoiding. Sensback received benefits for her plea adequate to permit the trial court to conclude that her plea did not constitute a significant mitigating factor. We conclude that the court did not abuse its discretion in declining to find the foregoing three factors as mitigating circumstances.