Opinion ID: 831420
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the majority fails to construe the statute in accordance with its plain language

Text: The majority claims that the mandatory minimum sentence articulated in MCL 750.520f(1) is 5 years, not at least 5 years, as the statute plainly reads. Such a conclusion is obviously wholly inconsistent with the plain meaning of MCL 750.520f(1), as evidenced by its grammatical structure, which describes the mandatory minimum sentence required under that provision as  at least 5 years. The Legislature could have created an absolute mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years, but it did not. [7] Instead, by using the phrase at least to modify 5 years, the Legislature created an indeterminate mandatory minimum sentence for recidivist sex offenders. Under the mandatory minimum sentence, 5 years is the starting point of the minimum sentence, not its upper terminus. Accordingly, a sentencing court must impose a sentence within the indeterminate mandatory minimum sentence of MCL 750.520f(1)namely, any minimum sentence of 5 years or more and that sentence is not a departure [8] from the legislative sentencing guidelines. The majority's misinterpretation will not be limited to the statute now before us. In numerous statutes, some covering our most serious crimes, the Legislature has chosen to create an indeterminate, rather than an absolute, mandatory minimum sentence. [9] Under today's decision, the majority reads out of our law books the indeterminate nature of these mandatory minimum sentences and replaces those sentences with absolute minimum terms that the Legislature did not enact. The majority apparently eschews the clear language of MCL 750.520f(1) because it concludes that the 10-year minimum sentence imposed here would be contrary to a central purpose of the sentencing guidelinesgreater uniformity in sentencing. [10] This rationale will not scour when one considers that the obligation of the judiciary is to apply legislative policies according to the unambiguous words used by the Legislature in the statutes enacted, not according to abstract policy considerations only judges can divine. [11] Whatever the broader policy of the legislative sentencing guidelines, the Legislature directed that a minimum sentence of  at least 5 years satisfies the particular statute at issue here, MCL 750.520f(1), and that is the policy we must apply. [12]