Opinion ID: 1469394
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Did the Court Lose Jurisdiction to Sentence the Defendant Staples?

Text: The defendant Staples' next claim of error is that The Court, in imposing a five to fifteen year sentence on defendant Staples, while for the same offense tried at the same trial sentenced Co-defendants Brann to three and one-half to ten years arbitrarily and without jurisdiction imposed a sentence which took into consideration Staples' unaccounted for absence from trial. The statutory procedure for review of the substance of a sentence to the Maine State Prison is by an appeal to the Appellate Division of this Court as authorized by 15 M.R.S.A. § 2142 and implemented by M.R.Crim.P., Rule 40. State v. Millett, Me., 273 A.2d 504 (1971). We may now, on direct appeal, examine only defendant Staples' claim that the length of his sentence, when compared with that given his co-defendant Brann, demonstrates that the presiding Justice took into consideration the fact that he had run away during trial. He contends that when the Justice did this, he acquired a prejudice which resulted in a loss of jurisdiction to sentence the defendant Staples. The defendant Staples' claim is in substance that of a denial of due process. Defendants Staples and Brann were the same age and had had substantial records of convictions of felonies of similar natures. At the time of sentence the presiding Justice engaged in a lengthy colloquy with defendant Staples in which he twice told the defendant he was giving him a lengthier sentence than he imposed on defendant Brann because he believed Staples was the brains of the organization, although the Justice's basis for this conclusion is not apparent from the record. The Justice also made clear that he considered Staples' absenting himself from his trial an indication of a basic lack of characteran inability to face up to what you have got to face up to (defendant Staples had previously been convicted of escape for running away from a prison work release program) [2] which suggested little hope of rehabilitation. The Justice obviously had in mind that defendant Brann, in contrast, had recognized his situation and take[n] his medicine. We said in Green v. State, Me., 247 A.2d 117, 120 (1968): 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. We have no doubt that the Justice's observation of the conduct of the defendant during the trial may be utilized by him in understanding the defendant's personal susceptibilities to criminal conduct and in determining the punishment appropriate to protect the public interest. He was not required to exclude defendant Staples' act of absconding as a factor in these determinations. We find no denial of constitutional due process. The defendant Staples has also used this issue of judicial prejudice as a sort of catch-all for other obliquely stated claims of error, not raised at trial, which may be consolidated, in the language of his brief, as a contention that [t]he sum total of the trial justice's comments and instructions to the jury were a calculated, though perhaps unknowing, plan of prejudice against the innocence of the absent defendant. First, the defendant notes that the presiding Justice told the jury, when the trial resumed without the defendant Staples, that the defendant had disappeared and trial would continue without him, adding: . . . I assume it to be a voluntary act on the part of Mr. Staples and, if anything is prejudicial, he has brought the prejudice upon himself. The defendant Staples argues that this statement practically invited . . . an inference [of guilt]. We do not come to this conclusion. We are satisfied that the jurors understood that the Justice was telling them that if the defendant was now handicapped in his defense, it was the result of his own action. We see no danger that they construed it as an invitation to infer guilt, especially in view of his careful instructions to the contrary. The Justice had little precedent to guide him in this unusual situation. The jury, of course, noticed the absence of defendant Staples at the counsel table and it was the Justice's responsibility to inform the jurors of the new situation in a manner which would not be unfair to either the State or the defendant. Obviously he could not restore to the defendant the potential advantages afforded by his presence at trial such as assisting counsel in evidentiary matters and taking the stand to refute adverse testimony without aborting the trial and starting a new one after defendant had again been apprehended a procedure certainly not in the public interest. The best a Justice can do is to present the matter in a way which will avoid arousing resentment on the part of the jurors which might prevent an impartial determination of guilt or innocence, to the defendant's detriment. On the other hand, the public interest demands that an absconding defendant should not through jury sympathy gain an advantage by his departure which might also prevent an impartial verdict. The State is entitled to have the jury know that no unjust governmental action has prevented the defendant from being present at his trial. Therefore, when it is feasible, the jury should be informed only that the defendant has made a choice not to be present at the trial. In situations where the knowledge of a defendant's absconding cannot reasonably be kept from the jury for example, a defendant could run away from the courtroom in the very presence of the jurythe Court may rely upon an instruction that the defendant's act of fleeing must not be given weight on the issue of guilt or innocence. Here, the jury did learn from the brief colloquy between the Justice and defense counsel that the defendant Staples had failed to return to the courthouse and that his attorney could not find him and the Justice announced his finding that the defendant's absence was voluntary in the jury's presence. Although the jury thus learned that the defendant's absence was apparently an absconding, there was no objection to this information being given the jury. Although this could and should have been kept from the jury, when we examine the situation under the manifest error rule (M.R.Crim.P., Rule 52(b)) we are not satisfied that making the jury aware of the apparent nature of the defendant's absence demonstrated evidence of a calculated plan of prejudice against the defendant. On three occasions the Justice instructed the jury that the defendant's absenting himself from the trial should not be considered as bearing on the question of guilt or innocence. When the Justice told the jurors that if anything is prejudicial, he has brought the prejudice upon himself he was only articulating the obvious fact that no one but the defendant himself is at fault for the trial handicaps that an absent party is likely to suffer. Second, the defendant argues that evidence of the Justice's plan of prejudice may be found in the tenor of his comments about breaking, entering and larceny in the nighttime which he argues were directed to dispel any notion that the alleged crime did not occur squarely in the nighttime. Defendant's trial counsel evidently drew no such a conclusion from the Justice's instructions as no objections were made. Neither can we draw such a conclusion. The Justice made three references to the necessity that the State prove the crime was committed in the nighttime: Once such a forcible entry has been made into the building, there must be a larceny of goods or property of another on the inside, and again this must be the goods or property of some value, and it is immaterial how much value is involved, whether you take goods worth $5 or $500,000 is immaterial so long as you take property of some value that belongs or is in the rightful possession of some other person, and you must then remove it from the premises, and if you do, it's [sic] in the nighttime, then the specific elements of this crime are then all satisfied. . . . . . . . . . and if you do it in the nighttime the law distinguishes between breaking and entering and larceny that takes place in the daytime and that takes place in the nighttime and the nighttime is, as you generally know it, when it is dark. It also is a period of time, could be a period of time, when it is not dark. Those of you who are familiar with the regulations as they relate to hunting, the hunting season, the law sets up a period of time. I don't think it is particularly applicable in this case because of what the testimony has been, but again, I think it begins at one-half hour after sunset and runs through until one-half hour before sunrise of the following morning, and this is the legal definition of nighttime, and obviously at certain times of the year within this particular time phase, you could have daylight but nevertheless, you could be operating in a legal nighttime. But again, the responsibility is on the part of the State to establish that if anything was done, if there was a breaking and entering and larceny of property that it was done during the nighttime and I would say to you that if it was done when it was dark, that is the night. While the Justice's reference to the statutes concerning hunting could not have been particularly helpful we see no possibility that it could have confused the jury, especially as the only evidence presented concerning the precise time of the break, with which no other evidence conflicted in any way, was that it occurred shortly after midnight. Certainly, this language cannot reasonably be said to suggest a calculated . . . plan of prejudice. The defendant Staples further attempts to support this claim of planned prejudice by pointing out that the youthful associate of Staples and Brann, in the same criminal transaction, was permitted to plead guilty to breaking, entering and larceny in the daytime which carries a lesser maximum penalty. While there is a superficial inconsistency in the differing convictions of two participants in the identical act the result does not, as the defendant contends, make a mockery of the judicial system. By permitting Dustin to plead guilty to an offense carrying the lesser of two possible penalties, the State was, no doubt, rewarding him for his cooperation in the investigation and solution of the crime and the Justice could properly permit it. It is not unconstitutional for the State to benefit a criminal defendant who has benefitted the State. Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 25 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970).