Opinion ID: 433635
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Constitutionality of Recidivist Statutes

Text: 15 The United States Supreme Court has consistently held that recidivist statutes do not violate the eighth amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Rummel v. Estelle, 445 U.S. 263, 100 S.Ct. 1133, 63 L.Ed.2d 382 (1980); Spencer v. Texas, 385 U.S. 554, 87 S.Ct. 648, 17 L.Ed.2d 606 (1967); Graham v. West Virginia, 224 U.S. 616, 32 S.Ct. 583, 56 L.Ed. 917 (1912). 16 In Rummel, the Court held that a mandatory life sentence imposed upon a defendant, under the Texas recidivist law, for having been three times convicted of property-related felonies, did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the eighth and fourteenth amendments. The Court so held notwithstanding the defendant's claim that life imprisonment was grossly disproportionate to the three property-related felonies that formed the predicate for his sentence. Rummel, 445 U.S. at 285, 100 S.Ct. at 1145. 17 Seritt seeks to distinguish Rummel from this case on the ground that Rummel's sentence, unlike his, did not preclude parole. Based on this distinction, Seritt contends that his without parole sentence constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court foreclosed this argument when it noted in Rummel that the length of the sentence actually imposed [for felony convictions] is purely a matter of legislative prerogative. Id. at 274, 100 S.Ct. at 1139. The Court, however, did note that proportionality would be a consideration in extreme cases, e.g., when a legislature makes overtime parking a felony punishable by life imprisonment. Id. at 274, n. 11, 100 S.Ct. at 1139, n. 11. We hold that this is not an extreme case and, therefore, is not readily distinguishable from Rummel on that ground. 18 Because the length of confinement is a matter within the discretion of the punishing jurisdiction, and because the right to parole is a privilege granted by the people of Alabama through its legislature, we look to Alabama law for guidance. In Holley v. State, 397 So.2d 211, 216 (Ala.App.1981), cert. denied, 397 So.2d 217 (Ala.1981), a defendant, like Seritt, was convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole under the Alabama Habitual Felony Offenders Act. The defendant appealed. 19 On appeal, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the sentence, stating: The Alabama Habitual Felony Offenders Act, Code of Alabama, 1975, is not unconstitutional because it does not provide for the consideration of any mitigating circumstances involving the appellant recidivist. Id. at 215. Thus, the Alabama legislature has exercised its discretion in meting out punishment to recidivists, and Alabama's courts have upheld such exercise of discretion as constitutional. 20 The Court's holding in Rummel does not support Seritt's contentions, but rather, it buttresses the state's contention that a mandatory life imprisonment sentence imposed on a defendant, under a recidivist law, after having been previously convicted of a trilogy of felonies does not necessarily constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the eighth and fourteenth amendments. 21 In Terrebonne v. Blackburn, 646 F.2d 997, 1003 (5th Cir.1981) (en banc) (Johnson, J., dissenting), the dissent, while discussing the Supreme Court's decision in Rummel v. Estelle, 445 U.S. 263, 100 S.Ct. 1133, 63 L.Ed.2d 382 (1980), correctly observed that: 22 [W]hen the [Supreme] Court acknowledged that the imposition of punishment is subject to 'those strictures of the Eighth Amendment that can be informed by objective factors,' Rummel v. Estelle, supra, 445 U.S. at 284, 100 S.Ct. at 1144 (emphasis supplied), it indicated a willingness to use other criteria to evaluate eighth amendment challenges. What the other criteria might be the Court chose not to reveal. 23 Id. at 1006. In the Supreme Court's most recent pronouncement on recidivist statutes, the Court chose to reveal the objective criteria it deemed appropriate when evaluating eighth amendment disproportionality challenges. Solem v. Helm, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 3001, 77 L.Ed.2d 637 (1983).