Opinion ID: 776953
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Louisiana

Text: 52 Finally, under Louisiana's habitual offender statute, at the time the last offenses in these cases were committed, Bray could not have received a comparable sentence, although Brown could have received a higher one.
53 Before August 15, 1995, 10 the Louisiana habitual offender statute required that both the third or fourth strike triggering life imprisonment and two of the prior felonies be a crime of violence ..., a sex offense, or ... a violation of the Uniformed Controlled Substances Law punishable by imprisonment for ten years or more or any other crime[] punishable by imprisonment for twelve years or more. See 1995 La. Sess. Law. Serv. 1245 § 1 (West) (amending La.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 15:529.1(A)(1)(b)(ii) & (c)(ii)). Because his current offense, albeit treatable as a felony if two prior thefts were considered, see La.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 14:67(B)(3), is not within any of these special categories of felonies, Bray could not have received such a sentence had he committed his offense in Louisiana at the time he committed his petty theft in California. 54 Rather, the applicable Louisiana law when Bray committed his offense and received his sentence would have allowed him to be sentenced to a maximum of four years for his current offense: That offense could only have been charged as a third felony in Louisiana, because Louisiana considers only offenses tried separately. Bray was convicted of three of his four robberies in one trial, so he had — and has — at most three strikes under Louisiana law. See Andrade, 270 F.3d at 764 n. 22, 765 (citing State v. Butler, 601 So.2d 649, 650 (La.1992); State v. Corry, 610 So.2d 142, 147 (La.Ct.App.1992)). The petty theft offense, with two prior theft offenses, could be treated as a second or third subsequent felony, in which case the maximum sentence for Bray would have been twice the two-year maximum for a first-time offender. La.Rev.Stat. Ann. §§ 14:67(B)(3), 15:529(A)(1)(b)(i); see also Andrade, 270 F.3d at 764 n. 22. 55 Louisiana has recently amended its habitual offender law so that it currently reads as it did before August of 1995. 2001 La. Sess. Law Serv. 403 (West). For a period of about six years, however, including the time at which his court of appeal decision was issued, Louisiana could have imposed a sentence of life without possibility of parole on Bray. See La. Rev.Stat. Ann. §§ 14:67(B)(3), 15:529.1(A)(1)(b)(ii) & (c)(i)-(ii) (West 2000), amended by 2001 La. Sess. Law Serv. 403 (West); see also Andrade, 270 F.3d at 765 & n. 22. 11 As the statute so providing was not in effect when Bray committed his last offense and is not in effect now, however, it is of no relevance to the interjurisdictional comparison.
56 Brown committed his offense and received his sentence while the harsher, interim version of Louisiana's habitual offender law was in effect. 12 He therefore could have received a sentence of life without parole had he committed his petty theft offense in Louisiana on the same date that he committed it in California. Brown's two prior strikes — assault with a deadly weapon and robbery — would have been considered crimes of violence in Louisiana, so Brown would have been subject to a sentence of life without possibility of parole under the Louisiana statutes in effect during this interim period. See La. Rev.Stat. Ann. § 15:529.1(A)(1)(b)(ii) & (c)(ii) (West 2000), amended by 2001 La. Sess. Law Serv. 403. It appears, however, that, even while this version of the statute was in effect, a life sentence without possibility of parole for petty theft might well have been vulnerable to successful challenge under the Louisiana Constitution, despite Brown's violent priors, given other recent Louisiana proportionality decisions. See Andrade, 270 F.3d at 765 (citing State v. Hayes, 739 So.2d 301, 303-04 (La.App. 1999) (holding that a life sentence was impermissibly excessive for a defendant convicted of theft of over $1000 who had a prior robbery conviction, considered violent in Louisiana); State v. Burns, 723 So.2d 1013 (La.Ct.App.1998)); see also State v. Neal, 762 So.2d 281, 286 (La.Ct.App.2000) (finding a mandatory life sentence without possibility of parole under the habitual offender statute to be unconstitutionally excessive where the defendant's current offense was theft of $160 worth of goods and his priors included two violent offenses — attempted manslaughter and aggravated battery). 57 Under the recent amendments to Louisiana's habitual offender statute, Brown could not be subject to a mandatory life sentence without possibility of parole, but he could receive a minimum sentence of 20 years for his last offense — a fourth or subsequent felony — had his entire record been proven to the trier of fact. See La.Rev. Stat. Ann. § 15:529.1(A)(1)(c)(i). 13 This sentence would be less onerous than his Three Strikes sentence in California: The sentence would be five years shorter, and it is possible that Brown would be eligible for parole before he served 20 years. 14 58 To summarize: Under both the law in effect at the time of his offense and current Louisiana law, Bray would have received a much lower sentence in Louisiana than in California. While Brown could have received a higher sentence in Louisiana originally, he would now receive a lower sentence in Louisiana than in California, and might be eligible for parole. So, there was at most one jurisdiction that conceivably would have imposed a higher sentence on one of these defendants, and that jurisdiction has since concluded — in an era when legislatures are hardly prone to impose light sentences on repeat criminals — that such a sentence is too high, and would now impose a lower sentence than in California. 59 Recent rejection of a higher sentence by the only state that perhaps would have allowed it in narrow circumstances signals a considered national legislative judgment based on actual experience that California's sentence is indeed disproportionate to the crime. See Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 102, 97 S.Ct. 285, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976) ([W]e have held repugnant to the Eighth Amendment punishments which are incompatible with `the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society'.) (quoting Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 101, 78 S.Ct. 590, 2 L.Ed.2d 630 (1958) (plurality opinion)). [T]he circumstance that a State has the most severe punishment for a particular crime does not by itself render the punishment grossly disproportionate, Harmelin, 501 U.S. at 1000, 111 S.Ct. 2680, and the interjurisdictional comparison cannot in any event be the determining factor in an Eighth Amendment analysis. 15 Nonetheless, the fact that California is comparatively isolated in its judgment concerning the appropriate punishment for petty theft by a recidivist, even for a recidivist with some violent criminal history, `validate[s][the] initial judgment that [the] sentence is grossly disproportionate to [the] crime'. Andrade, 270 F.3d at 765 (quoting Harmelin, 501 U.S. at 1005, 111 S.Ct. 2680).