Opinion ID: 1427529
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Arbitrariness in Charging and Sentencing

Text: Finally, the majority scarcely mention the significant problems of charging and sentencing that will inevitably arise if its standard is adopted. In the present case counts 19 to 23 alleged acts committed between November 1, 1983, and August 30, 1984, with March and April of 1984 omitted. But the division of the charged offenses into two-month periods so as to amount to five counts against defendant was purely arbitrary; the prosecutor could have divided the period into ten counts, or two, according to his whim. Because the number of charges on which a defendant is convicted will strongly influence the length of his sentence, the majority's approach creates a serious risk of arbitrary and disproportionate sentencing. Anchoring each criminal count in a specific, distinguishable criminal act, as I propose, would avoid such abuses of unfettered prosecutorial discretion. The majority's only response to this dilemma is to admonish prosecutors, parenthetically, to exercise discretion in limiting the number of separate counts charged. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 314.) The exhortation neither provides prosecutors with any guidelines as to what a reasonable exercise of discretion would be, nor establishes any standard for abuse of discretion that would be reviewable by an appellate court. While most prosecutors will doubtless exercise restraint, the few who do not, for whatever mixture of self-seeking and misguidedly altruistic motives, will be undeterred by the majority's admonition.