Opinion ID: 1984184
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Letters from Community Members

Text: Prior to sentencing the defendant, the court received a report from the victim-witness advocate that contained statements from twenty-one members of the Monticello community, or about 2% of the population of Monticello, which has a population of approximately 1000. All of the individuals who authored the statements knew Jennifer personally. They included Jennifer's teachers, neighbors and a community minister. The defendant contends that the statements of these community members amounted to a de facto sentencing poll that was improperly considered by the court. [5] In State v. Samson, 388 A.2d 60, 66 (Me.1978), we held that sentencing recommendations and exhortations contained in a court-ordered poll of the community conducted by a probation and parole officer preparing a presentence investigation were impermissible as carrying within themselves an inherent potential of coercive influence upon the sentencing judge. The court has broad discretion in what information it considers when sentencing. State v. Fleming, 644 A.2d 1034, 1036 (Me. 1994); M.R.Crim.P. 32(c). Due process limits this discretion by requiring that the information be factually reliable. Id. (citing State v. Dumont, 507 A.2d 164, 166-67 (Me.1986)). The court has an obligation to impose sentences that do not diminish the gravity of offenses with reference to the factor, among others, of the age of the victim. 17-A M.R.S.A. § 1151(8)(A) (1983 & Supp.1994). In this case, the opinions offered by individuals about the appropriate sentence were unsolicited by the court, and hence there is no suggestion, of concern to us in Samson, that the court was prepared to defer to expressions of community sentiment solicited by the court. Furthermore, the sentence exhortations were contained within factually reliable statements describing the impact of Jennifer's death on members of the Monticello community who knew her personally. [6] The statements of widespread grief and outrage are evidence of the harm caused by the defendant to these members of the community, and they are relevant to the court's responsibility to impose a sentence that does not diminish the gravity of the offense, see 17-A M.R.S.A. § 1151(8)(A), and that individualizes the sentence justly, see 17-A M.R.S.A. § 1151(6) (1983). See also Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 825, 111 S.Ct. 2597, 2608, 115 L.Ed.2d 720, 735 (1991) (holding that it is constitutionally permissible to bring evidence of the specific harm caused by a defendant to the attention of the sentencing court because such evidence is relevant to the issue of a defendant's moral culpability). The entry is: Judgment affirmed. Sentence affirmed. All concurring.