Opinion ID: 1239284
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: consideration at sentencing of other pending criminal charges

Text: Lee asserts that he is entitled to resentencing (before a different judge) because the sentencing judge improperly considered two pending grand jury indictments against him for armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery, which were disclosed in the presentence report. We will quote the sentencing transcript verbatim because this is a case of first impression in Michigan and inasmuch as the judge uses the report, it is critical in his determination of sentencing. The Court: The record may show that Doursey Lee is before the Court for sentence with his attorney, Mr. Shelton Penn. And, Mr. Lee, is there anything you want to say to the Court before sentence is passed? The Defendant: No, sir, nothing more than I am innocent, I am sorry that it did happen. The Court: I noticed from the presentence investigation report that you still maintain that you are innocent. The Defendant: Yes. The Court: And I assume that you claim that the woman in the drive-in cleaning establishment was wrong in her identification. Nevertheless, all of that matter was reviewed by the jury and they found you guilty of armed robbery and so the Court has to take the verdict of the jury as being evidence of the fact that the jury found that you were guilty of armed robbery. Armed robbery, of course, is a terribly serious offense subject to life imprisonment. It appears that you had quite a bit of difficulty with the law in December of 1959, you were given three years probation, with the first six months in jail, for the offense of breaking and entering, but the probation was revoked about six months later when, on July 8, 1960, you were convicted of robbery, unarmed, and sentenced to the state prison for three to fifteen years. Then you were paroled and finally discharged on June 19, 1965. Now at the present time you are serving a sentence of one year in county jail for the conviction of carrying a concealed weapon which occurred on August 26, 1970. And, in addition to that conviction, there are two prosecutions pending against you resulting from the grand jury indictment, as you know. One is for conspiring to rob and the other is on armed robbery. The record shows that when you were in school you had difficulty and you dropped out while attending the eighth grade classes at the age of sixteen. You tried to do something after leaving school. You had several jobs; you also worked for the Grand Trunk Railroad in June and July of 1970 and you worked while you were in prison as a sewing machine operator and you never learned to capitalize on that experience. You are twenty-nine years old and, of course, you are the product of a broken home. You have never been able to hold a job very long. It appears from the presentence investigation report that for some reason you acted impulsively and at the time you probably did not realize the consequences of what you were doing and you get an idea in your head and go ahead and do it without thinking. Now you have served about six months, have you, on carrying a concealed weapon? The Defendant: Yes. The Court: You were in jail, Mr. Penn says, from some time in October until a date in January on this particular charge before you were released on bond. The Defendant: No, I was released on bond September. I was arrested for CCW in August and released on bond September 24th. Mr. Penn: You were brought back in October on this charge. The Court: And then you served from October until a day in January, until you had a trial. The Defendant: Yes. The Court: The trial was in April. Mr. Penn: The concealed weapons charge was in February. The Court: He was in jail on carrying concealed weapons. Mr. Penn: No, Your Honor, he could have made bond on concealed weapons. What I am saying he was in jail for failure to make bond on armed robbery and should be given credit from October to February on this charge. The Court: October to February because he could have made bond on the other case, is that correct? Mr. Penn: Yes, he had been here on bond on the other case, but he was being held on this case. The Court: Well, taking everything into consideration, it is the sentence of this court that you serve a term at Michigan Corrections Commission for not less than six years nor more than twenty years and you will be given credit for the time that you served in jail from October, 1970 to the date in February of 1971. All right. (Emphasis added.) Lee did not object to the reference to the pending charges at the time of the sentencing hearing, nor does he now seek to assail the accuracy of those charges. Therefore, Lee's challenge is to the inclusion of pending charges in the presentence report per se. The emphasis of the penal code is on the crime rather than the criminal in the sense that the maximum and minimum limits of sentences are based on the gravity of the act committed. This is balanced, however, by the statutory requirement that the probation officer file the presentence report. MCLA 771.14; MSA 28.1144 provides in pertinent part: Sec. 14. Before sentencing any person charged with a felony    the probation officer shall inquire into the antecedents, character and circumstances of such person or persons, and shall report thereon in writing to such court or magistrate. If such person is committed to a state penal institution or the Detroit house of correction, a copy of such pre-sentence investigation report and if a psychopathic or psychiatric examination of such person has been made for the court, a copy of the report thereon shall accompany the commitment papers    . (Emphasis added.) Moreover, GCR 1963, 785 was amended after Lee's May 19, 1971, sentencing hearing to require disclosure of the presentence report to the defendant's lawyer and the defendant prior to sentencing. We cannot determine on this record whether the defendant and/or his attorney had an opportunity to review and prepare a rebuttal to allegations in the report prior to the sentencing hearing. But there is no dispute that the defendant was apprised at the hearing of its contents, including the enumeration of pending charges, since the judge recited the contents of the report orally while reviewing it prior to sentencing. Historically, separate evidentiary rules have been fashioned for the trial and sentencing procedures. Evidence admitted at trial to determine whether the defendant is guilty of specific criminal conduct is largely limited by evidentiary rules to first-hand or verifiable testimony directly related to the offense charged. But under Michigan's indeterminate sentencing law, MCLA 769.8; MSA 28.1080; the responsibility for setting the limits of sentence between the statutory minimum and maximum rests squarely on the sentencing judge. At the sentencing hearing, after the issue of guilt has been decided, full information regarding the defendant's character, background, and criminal record have generally been deemed admissible under concepts of individualizing punishment. [7] The presentence report, mandatory for felony cases in Michigan since 1931, [8] allows the court to make an informed judgment as to possibilities for rehabilitation, and to effectively utilize sentencing alternatives. The presentence report has been widely regarded as an effective method of supplying information essential to an informed sentencing decision. See Sentencing Alternatives and Procedures, ABA Project on Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice, § 4.1, p 201; Williams v New York, 337 US 241, 249-250; 69 S Ct 1079; 93 L Ed 1337 (1949); Gregg v United States, 394 US 489, 492; 89 S Ct 1134; 22 L Ed 2d 442 (1969). Moreover, a number of other jurisdictions which have considered the issue have held that the sentencing judge may consider other offenses enumerated in the presentence report, at least where the defendant does not challenge information in the report. See Jones v United States, 113 US App DC 233, 235; 307 F2d 190, 192 (1962); Neely v State, 47 Wis 2d 330; 177 NW2d 79 (1970); State v Ferbert, ___ NH ___; 306 A2d 202, 204 (1973); Court's right, in imposing sentence, to hear evidence of, or to consider, other offenses committed by defendant, 96 ALR2d 768, and the cases cited therein; 1 Wigmore, Evidence (3d ed), § 4(8), p 25. The argument can be made that the sentencing determination should be made in a sterile vacuum, that the judge should not know of other pending charges because, first, they have not been proven, and second, knowing of them undoubtedly influences his determination. On the other hand, however, it is obvious that in cases where the judge knows that plea bargaining has taken place, he knows of the pending charges already. The practice of recorder's court is, reportedly, to assign all concurrently pending charges against a particular defendant to one judge for trial, and in smaller communities the judge's knowledge of the background of previously convicted defendants may be inescapable. Therefore, it would be burying our heads in the sand to suppose that judges would not in most instances hear about the charges pending against a defendant in one way or another, and, consequently, any rule to proscribe consideration of the information would be fatuous. The realistic and honest policy is to recognize that the judges will have this information in one way or another and to provide the defendant the opportunity at his instance to challenge or explain such pending charges as best he can, if he deems it advisable. Compare People v McFarlin, 389 Mich 557, 572; 208 NW2d 504 (1973). Under the statutory language, providing for inquiry into the defendant's antecedents, character, and circumstances, there are no formal limitations on the contents of the presentence report, but there are limitations dictated by due process. In Townsend v Burke, 334 US 736, 740; 68 S Ct 1252; 92 L Ed 1690 (1948), the United States Supreme Court found that the defendant had been overreached by the prosecution's submission of misinformation to the court or was prejudiced by the court's own misreading of the record where the defendant was uncounselled at the sentencing hearing and the sentencing judge considered a prior charge that actually had been dismissed and two charges of which he had been found not guilty. In United States v Tucker, 404 US 443, 447; 92 S Ct 589; 30 L Ed 2d 592 (1972) where evidence of three prior felony convictions which were constitutionally invalid due to lack of counsel was considered at sentencing, the United States Supreme Court remanded for resentencing because the sentence [was] founded at least in part upon misinformation of constitutional magnitude. In the instant case, the defendant had counsel at the sentencing hearing, and does not allege that the charges enumerated in the presentence report are constitutionally infirm. There is no indication that defendant Lee was overreached by the prosecutor or by submission of misinformation to the court by the probation officer. Neither Lee nor his attorney challenged or disputed the accuracy of adverse information regarding defendant's background, employment record, prior felony convictions, or pending charges at the sentencing hearing. Lee did not ask the judge to exercise his discretion to exclude reference to the pending charges. The judge was not asked to disregard any of the allegations in the report, nor did the defendant or his attorney seek an opportunity to discredit the report by cross-examination or otherwise. See Williams v New York, 337 US 241, 244. In the instant case, the pending charges are referrable to an official record, the grand jury indictment, and are not mere rumors or vague allegations such as were disapproved in People v Zachery Davis, 41 Mich App 683, 686-692; 200 NW2d 779 (1972). Lee was sentenced following a formal sentencing hearing before the trial judge. He was represented by counsel at the time of sentencing and was given an opportunity to make a statement on his own behalf. Lee maintained that he was innocent of the crime charged. His attorney also made arguments on Lee's behalf, largely on the question of jail credit time. Moreover, there is no evidence that the court drew false inferences from the presentence report, as in People v Grimmett, 388 Mich 590; 202 NW2d 278 (1972). Grimmett's case was remanded for resentencing on the assault charged, where the trial judge made an independent finding of defendant's guilt on another charge, in stating at the sentencing hearing that while [Grimmett] was tried for the shooting of Mr. Kubon, he is certainly the same person who murdered the other grocer    at the same time. We will not sanction a judge's making an assumption of guilt of other crimes on the basis of the presentence report. This is why courts reserve the authority to modify sentences where inappropriate considerations appear to have improperly affected the sentence. This is also the reason why it is useful for the sentencing judge to indicate on the record the extent to which he relied on specific information contained in the presentence report in levying sentence. In the case at bar, the judge placed his consideration of the pending charges on record by reviewing the presentence report orally at the sentencing hearing. It appears from the record that no emphasis was placed on the pending charges. The information in the presentence report may have resulted in mitigation of sentence in the case at bar. The sentencing judge considered the fact that the defendant acted impulsively in committing the armed robbery charged and probably did not realize the consequences of what [he was] doing and sentenced the defendant to 6 to 20 years imprisonment on his fourth felony conviction, whereas he might have sentenced defendant to life or for any term of years. Therefore, we find that in setting punishment, the trial judge properly considered information in the presentence report prepared by the probation officer. We do not believe it would be a wise policy to restrict the sentencing judge to the information admissible in open court alone. The question of sentencing is properly a matter for the exercise of judicial discretion, and an informed exercise of that discretion requires an individualized factual basis, such as is provided by the presentence report. Without knowledge of a convicted defendant's past life, employment record, criminal record, psychiatric history, if any, and mental and moral propensities, Williams v New York, 337 US 241, 245, it would be difficult for the sentencing judge to free himself in his determination of sentence from the nature of the offense charged and the caliber of the defense at trial. The presentence report not only aids the sentencing court in determining punishment, but in bringing relevant information regarding the character and antecedents of the defendant to the attention of the sentencing judge is of possible advantage to the defendant as well, since it shifts the emphasis of the sentencing proceedings from the specific nature of the crime committed to the individual convicted of the crime. V  ALIBI INSTRUCTION Lee's defense at trial was premised on misidentification and alibi. His first alibi witness, his mother, testified that Lee had left her house with one of his friends at approximately 7 o'clock in the evening to fix a light problem in a car and go to a grocery store; but that she saw him again no later than quarter to eight, as he was walking back to his house and she was on her way over there. His other alibi witness, his wife, testified that Lee came into the doorway of his house at twenty minutes to eight, quarter to eight, something like that. A police officer testified that the police received a phone call from the One Hour Martinizing Cleaners at 7:51 p.m. reporting a robbery by a lone gunman. The friend in whose company Lee had left his mother's house did not testify at the trial. Lee contends that his defense of alibi was jeopardized by an improper instruction to the jury that an alibi defense is as legitimate as any other defense if proven. Lee asserts that the instruction erroneously shifted the burden of proof from the prosecutor to the defendant. The instruction was improper. The judge should have instructed if not disproven instead of if proven. However, Lee's trial attorney did not object to the instruction before the jury retired to consider its verdict. Therefore, although we disapprove of the instruction as given, there was no reversible error since the issue was not preserved. The complete alibi instruction given by the court reads: The defendant in this case also claims the defense of what we call ALIBI, and that is, in simple English, that he was at another place at the time of commission of the alleged offense. I instruct you that this sort of defense is a proper one, and is as legitimate if proven as any other defense. You should consider all the evidence bearing upon that point and carefully examine it and if, in view of the evidence, you have any reasonable doubt as to whether the defendant was at some other place and [sic] the time the crime was committed, you should give him, the defendant, the benefit of any doubt and find him not guilty. (Emphasis added.) In the continuation of the instruction, after the statement objected to, the court pointed out that the benefit of any doubt (emphasis added) should be accorded to the defendant. Therefore, the charge properly indicated that the defendant need not fully establish an alibi to have the benefit thereof, in rebuttal of the proofs of the prosecution. Testimony in support of an alibi need accomplish no more than raise a reasonable doubt of defendant's presence at the time and place of the commission of the crime charged. See People v Marvill, 236 Mich 595, 597; 211 NW 23 (1926). The issue presented to the jury was one of credibility. Taking the charge as a whole, we are persuaded that the jury understood that its task was to determine whether the alibi testimony created sufficient doubt that it could not find the defendant guilty of the robbery charged beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury elected to believe the testimony of the complaining witness. We find that there was sufficient evidence in the record upon which the jury could reasonably have based its judgment of guilt.