Opinion ID: 1924642
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Constitutionality of Consecutive Life Sentences

Text: The defendant also argues that his convictions for first-degree murder and using a firearm resulting in death, as set forth in G.L.1956 § 11-47-3.2(b)(3) and (c) [12] violate the Double Jeopardy Clauses of both the state and federal constitutions and the separation of powers required by the Rhode Island Constitution; finally, he contends that the sentences are grossly excessive in violation of the Eighth Amendment [13] and the Rhode Island Constitution, article 1, section 8 [14] prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment. Some of these issues were not preserved; all are without merit. [15] Notwithstanding the failure to preserve his double jeopardy and merger contentions, defendant asks us to reconsider our holdings in State v. Feliciano, 901 A.2d 631, 648 (R.I.2006) and State v. Rodriguez, 822 A.2d 894, 904-08 (R.I.2003), in which we concluded that convictions for both crimes do not merge for double jeopardy purposes. We decline defendant's request, and we reaffirm our holding in Rodriguez and its progeny. The defendant also argued to the trial justice and to this Court on appeal that the Legislature's designation of a mandatory life sentence for violating § 11-47-3.2(b)(3) (using a firearm while committing a crime of violence resulting in death), coupled with the mandate that the penalty shall run consecutively, and not concurrently, to any other sentence imposed as provided in § 11-47-3.2(c), violates Article V of the Rhode Island Constitution, which provides that [t]he powers of the government shall be distributed into three separate and distinct departments: the legislative, executive and judicial. According to defendant, when the General Assembly prescribed a mandatory and consecutive sentence of life imprisonment for anyone who uses a firearm while committing murder, it usurped the judicial power by depriving the trial justice of his or her sentencing discretion. This argument is without merit. This Court has long held that it is the prerogative of the General Assembly to define criminal offenses and set forth the sentences for those crimes and that when it does so, the Legislature is not intruding upon the judicial function. Hazard v. Howard, 110 R.I. 107, 111, 290 A.2d 603, 606 (1972). Although the Legislature may not encroach upon the judicial power by attempting to control or alter a judicial decision or a court's prior judgment, Lemoine v. Martineau, 115 R.I. 233, 238, 342 A.2d 616, 620 (1975); State v. Garnetto, 75 R.I. 86, 91-92, 63 A.2d 777, 779-80 (1949), the General Assembly is vested with the power to delineate criminal offenses and their punishments. Moreover, in recognizing the authority of the Legislature to determine the appropriate punishment for a given crime, this Court has refused to substitute our will for that of a body democratically elected by the citizens of this state and to overplay our proper role in the theater of Rhode Island government. Feliciano, 901 A.2d at 648 (quoting DeSantis v. Prelle, 891 A.2d 873, 881 (R.I. 2006)). Nor are we persuaded that the mandate of consecutive sentences for murder and using a firearm while committing that murder requires a different result. It is the Legislature's prerogative to authorize cumulative punishments; when it does so, it is the judicial task to impose that sentence in due course. See Missouri v. Hunter, 459 U.S. 359, 368, 103 S.Ct. 673, 74 L.Ed.2d 535 (1983) (Legislatures, not courts, prescribe the scope of punishments.). Accordingly, we are satisfied that defendant's contentions are without merit. Finally, we shall briefly address defendant's contention that the two mandatory and consecutive sentences of life imprisonment imposed in this case violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, as well as article 1, section 8, of the Rhode Island Constitution, because, he argues, the punishments are grossly excessive. [16] `The burden of proving that a [criminal] sentence is manifestly excessive falls to the party seeking reduction.' McKinney v. State, 843 A.2d 463, 473 (R.I.2004). The defendant cites this Court's opinion in State v. Ballard, 699 A.2d 14, 19 (R.I. 1997), to support his claim that his sentence was grossly disproportionate; this reliance is misplaced. In Ballard, this Court ordered reduced two consecutive sentences of life imprisonment to concurrent life terms that would run concurrently with a sentence of sixty-five years. Id. Those sentences were not mandatory but were imposed in the exercise of the trial justice's sound discretion. Id. In this case, the consecutive life sentences imposed by the trial justice were mandatory. See § 11-47-3.2(c). Thus, to the extent that Ballard retains any value as precedent, see State v. Vieira, 883 A.2d 1146, 1150 n. 3 (R.I.2005) (reaffirming that our prior holding in Ballard should be narrowly read as applying to the facts of that case), it is of no assistance in evaluating the constitutionality of mandatory consecutive sentences. This Court has recognized that the Eighth Amendment contains a narrow proportionality principle such that a criminal sentence is excessive and unconstitutional if, inter alia, it is grossly out of proportion to the severity of the crime. McKinney, 843 A.2d at 467 (quoting Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584, 592, 97 S.Ct. 2861, 53 L.Ed.2d 982 (1977)). In McKinney, 843 A.2d at 469, we adopted this narrow proportionality principle (that applies to both capital and noncapital sentences), as discussed by the United States Supreme Court in Ewing v. California, 538 U.S. 11, 123 S.Ct. 1179, 155 L.Ed.2d 108 (2003) and Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 123 S.Ct. 1166, 155 L.Ed.2d 144 (2003). The gross disproportionality principle reserves a constitutional violation for only the extraordinary case. Lockyer, 538 U.S. at 77, 123 S.Ct. 1166. The overriding inquiry for determining `proportionality' is whether the sentence is commensurate with the gravity of the crime. McKinney, 843 A.2d at 469 (citing Ewing, 538 U.S. at 23, 123 S.Ct. 1179 (Kennedy, J., concurring)). Thus, a constitutional violation will be found only in extreme circumstances in which the sentence is grossly disproportionate to the offenses for which defendant stands convicted. Turning to article 1, section 8, of the Rhode Island Constitution, in State v. Ouimette, 479 A.2d 702, 706 (R.I.1984), we acknowledged that our state constitution contains a provision requiring that all punishments ought to be proportioned to the offense[.] However, we recently have had occasion to revisit our holding in Ouimette and, in doing so, have recognized that the Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence has changed significantly since John Ouimette's life sentence for robbery was reduced to forty-five years, with thirty years to serve and fifteen years suspended. McKinney, 843 A.2d at 470; see also Ouimette, 479 A.2d at 703, 706. The proportionality principle of the Eighth Amendment requires a comparison of the defendant's sentence to similarly situated defendants if the Court has [first] determined that the defendant's sentence is grossly disproportionate to the crime itself. McKinney, 843 A.2d at 470. Accordingly, we reaffirmed our holding that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment and the provisions of article 1, section 8, of the Rhode Island Constitution are identical. Id. A criminal sentence is disproportionate if the sentence itself is unduly harsh when compared with the crime. Id. In the present case, we are confronted with a mandatory sentencethis is a case of first-degree murder in which an innocent bystander was killed as a result of gun violence by a member of a street gang. In addition to a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment for first-degree murder, [17] a mandatory consecutive life term was imposed because defendant committed the murder with a firearm. The record portrays a daylong gun battle on the streets and playgrounds of the city of Providence. After defendant declared his intention to kill a member of a rival gang, he fired his weapon on three separate occasions, culminating in the death of an innocent party. After reviewing this record, we are satisfied that this crime is precisely the type of gun violence that the Legislature intended to address when it provided for a mandatory consecutive sentence of life imprisonment for using a firearm while committing murder. We are not persuaded that this sentence is unconstitutional. Although this conviction constitutes defendant's introduction into the adult criminal justice system, this factor is outweighed by the nature of the crime and the state's public safety interest in preventing gang murders and indiscriminate shootings on the streets of our cities and towns. We are mindful that this is not the harshest punishment under our law. A sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is reserved for the most heinous murders, when special circumstances are found by the jury, including, inter alia, felony murder, murder for hire, murder involving torture or aggravated battery, or the murder of a police officer. General Laws 1956 § 11-23-2. A consecutive life sentence for a gang-related murder of an innocent bystander committed with a firearm does not constitute an extraordinary case warranting an application of the proportionality principle. McKinney, 843 A.2d at 470. Thus, we reject defendant's contention that this sentence constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.