Opinion ID: 1231473
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: proportionality and appellate review of sentences

Text: Where a given case does not present a combination of circumstances placing the offender in either the most serious or least threatening class with respect to the particular crime, then the trial court is not justified in imposing the maximum or minimum penalty, respectively. [22] Accordingly, if the maximum or minimum penalty is unjustifiably imposed in this regard, contrary to the legislative scheme, the reviewing court must vacate the sentence and remand the case to the trial court for resentencing. The discretion conferred by the Legislature does not extend to exercises thereof which violate legislative intent; such exercises are, therefore, an abuse of discretion.
To be sure, the determination whether a sentence is so disproportionate to the seriousness of the circumstances of the crime as to require resentencing becomes considerably more difficult where the sentence does not represent the minimum or maximum allowable for a given crime. [23] Moreover, this difficulty may be compounded where the Legislature has set no minimum or has prescribed a maximum of a lengthy term of years or life. Fortunately, since the publication of Coles in 1983, an invaluable tool for gauging the seriousness of a particular offense by a particular offender, as well as the disparity in sentencing between courtrooms, has been developed. In 1984 and 1985, we issued administrative orders requiring judges of this state to use the first edition of the Michigan Sentencing Guidelines. Administrative Order No. 1984-1, 418 Mich lxxx (1984); Administrative Order No. 1985-2, 420 Mich lxii (1985). As explained in McComb, An overview of the second edition of the Michigan Sentencing Guidelines, 67 Mich B J 863, 864 (1988), Since that time, the guidelines have remained in use statewide. The guidelines staff has assembled a data base of about 70,000 cases, and the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals have begun to develop a body of case law on issues related to the guidelines (e.g., People v Walker, 428 Mich 261; 407 NW2d 367 [1987], People v Broden, 428 Mich 343; 408 NW2d 789 [1987], and People v Fleming, 428 Mich 408; 410 NW2d 266 [1987]). Since the guidelines took effect, the overall compliance rate has been in the vicinity of 80%. In addition, Michigan has seen the elimination of statistically significant racial disparity in sentencing in all of the nine crime groups. The SGAC has continued throughout the years to work on improving the guidelines. It has had the benefit of detailed statistical analyses of the committee's substantial data base. The judges' departure reasons have also been considered. Informal communication from bench and bar have also brought to the committee's attention areas in which improvements are needed.    It became apparent that the point values for the PRVS and OVS, the 3X6 grid structure, and the recommended sentences were not consistent with current sentencing practice or with each other (or both). In any case, there were many instances in which the offenders in a given grid cell were, in fact, not similar in terms of the factors most salient to the sentence. This, in turn, meant that no set of recommended ranges was likely to ensure compliance. To rectify these problems, the SGAC began re-examining the extent to which the sentencing guidelines scoring system comported with actual judicial sentencing behavior. The conclusion reached by the SGAC and State Court Administrative Office staff was that the guidelines needed to better capture the reasoning process of the sentencing judges. Sparing the intermediate steps, the result of several years of work by the SGAC can be summarized as follows: the scoring system, grid configuration, and recommended sentence ranges have been revised so that they are both similar to the main currents of judicial decision-making and consistent with one another. As such, the second edition distinguishes clearly between factors of greater importance and factors that are less significant, thereby providing a firm foundation for the location of classes of offenders who are indeed similarly situated. The guidelines represent the actual sentencing practices of the judiciary, and we believe that the second edition of the sentencing guidelines is the best barometer of where on the continuum from the least to the most threatening circumstances a given case falls. Nevertheless, because our sentencing guidelines do not have a legislative mandate, [24] we are not prepared to require adherence to the guidelines. We note that departures are appropriate where the guidelines do not adequately account for important factors legitimately considered at sentencing. For example, as the dissent points out, a sentencing judge could legitimately depart from the guidelines when confronted by the unlikely prospect of a one hundred-time repeat offender, since the guidelines do not take such extensive criminal records into account. In addition, we emphasize that the guidelines should continue to reflect actual sentencing practice. To require strict adherence to the guidelines would effectively prevent their evolution, and, for this reason, trial judges may continue to depart from the guidelines when, in their judgment, the recommended range under the guidelines is disproportionate, in either direction, to the seriousness of the crime. [25] However, because of the increased sophistication of the second edition of the guidelines and because they represent the sentencing practices of the great majority of our state's sentencing judges, they become a useful tool in carrying out the legislative scheme of properly grading the seriousness and harmfulness of a given crime and given offender within the legislatively authorized range of punishments. We believe that the gradation of recommended sentencing ranges within the guidelines indicates not only that the full statutory range of possible sentences is being used, but also that the recommended ranges increase as the factors that are adequately represented in the guidelines become more serious. For this reason, we believe that it is safe to assume that in the eyes of the vast majority of trial judges who have chosen to impose sentences within the guidelines ranges, the guidelines reflect the relative seriousness of different combinations of offense and offender characteristics. It is worthwhile to note again in this context the concerns of Judge SHEPHERD, concurring in People v Rutherford, supra, pp 280-281. If the guidelines did set binding limits on the trial court's discretion, I would be constrained to remand when the judge states reasons for departing from the guidelines which are already considered therein. The problem we face in these cases is that the guidelines include factors such as the severity of the offense, the past record of the defendant, and the sentences historically imposed throughout the state. If the trial judge justifies a departure from the guidelines by stating that he does so because of the nature of the offense and the record of the offender, the trial court has considered these factors twice. If we say that the trial judge may, in an individual case, place greater emphasis on any given factor by simply announcing on the record his intention to do so, the guidelines become nothing more than a litany of magic words used to mask the imposition of subjective, arbitrary and disparate sentences  the very problem which Coles and the guidelines were designed to eliminate. If the sentencing judge is not held to have abused his discretion by emphasizing a factor already included in the guidelines as a basis for departing from them, and if the record is devoid of evidence showing whether a sentence beyond the guidelines is disparate, we are furnished with no basis other than our own subjective reactions upon which to base a decision. The risk of imposing an arbitrary and disparate sentence is thus shifted from the trial courts to the Court of Appeals. These observations are well taken. Even though sentencing within the guidelines is recommended rather than compulsory, departures from the guidelines, unsupported by reasons not adequately reflected in the guidelines variables, should nevertheless alert the appellate court to the possibility of a misclassification of the seriousness of a given crime by a given offender and a misuse of the legislative sentencing scheme. We believe that the discretion of trial courts adhering to the guidelines is not unduly restricted, since the recommended sentence range in a given cell of the guidelines is generally quite broad. We thus reject again [26] the dissent's suggestion that it is at all possible to replace discretionary sentences with the more nearly determinate sentences set forth in the grids ( post, p 687), for the grids, far from setting forth specific sentences, instead set forth a range of possible minimum sentences from which a judge intending to stay within the guidelines can choose. Where there is a departure from the sentencing guidelines, an appellate court's first inquiry should be whether the case involves circumstances that are not adequately embodied within the variables used to score the guidelines. [27] A departure from the recommended range in the absence of factors not adequately reflected in the guidelines should alert the appellate court to the possibility that the trial court has violated the principle of proportionality and thus abused its sentencing discretion. Even where some departure appears to be appropriate, the extent of the departure (rather than the fact of the departure itself) may embody a violation of the principle of proportionality. See People v McKinley, 168 Mich App 496, 512; 425 NW2d 460 (1988). (We do not dispute that a prison sentence  even a lengthy one  is in order. We conclude, however, that a fifteen-year minimum sentence for the events that occurred here is disproportionate to the specific acts committed and the danger involved. Too frequently reasons are given for a sentence that apply equally to a lesser or greater sentence unless an explanation is offered on the record for the specific sentence given. Such was the case here.) (Emphasis added.) In some cases, there may be important sentencing factors that are not included in the sentencing guidelines. Perhaps the clearest example of such a factor is the prior relationship, if any, between the victim and the offender. The Sentencing Guidelines Advisory Committee has sought to identify variables that are uniformly mitigating or aggravating. [28] A prior relationship between a victim and an offender can be a very mitigating circumstance or a very aggravating circumstance, depending upon the history of interaction between the parties. Other important aspects of the case might not be found among the guidelines' variables, if these aspects do not occur frequently in criminal cases or cannot be neatly scored on a numerical scale. Conceivably, even a sentence within the sentencing guidelines could be an abuse of discretion in unusual circumstances. See People v Broden, 428 Mich 343, 354, n 18; 408 NW2d 789 (1987). As noted above, in the interest of allowing the guidelines to continue to evolve, trial judges shall remain entitled to depart from the guidelines if the recommended ranges are considered an inadequate reflection of the proportional seriousness of the matter at hand. Just as the guidelines may not be a perfect embodiment of the principle of proportionality, so too may a sentence within the guidelines be disproportionately severe or lenient. Thus, contrary to the implication of the dissent's repeated observation that departures may be risked only on pain of reversal ( post, pp 670, 692), the key test is whether the sentence is proportionate to the seriousness of the matter, not whether it departs from or adheres to the guidelines' recommended range. [29]