Opinion ID: 1918085
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Two-Year Minimum Mandatory Sentence

Text: [¶ 22] This Court always [has] the power and duty to uphold the State and Federal Constitutions, and will protect the individual from an unconstitutional invasion of his rights by the legislative . . . branch[] of government. Dep't of Corr. v. Superior Court, 622 A.2d 1131, 1134-35 (Me.1993) (quotation marks omitted). Nevertheless, we recognize the primacy of the Legislature as the voice of the sovereign people in the area of crime and punishment: The fixing of an adequate [criminal] penalty is properly and legitimately a matter of legislative concern. It is not the office of the judiciary to interpose constitutional limitations where none need be found. . . . . Of course a mandatory sentence of great severity may at some point lose its rational relation to a permissible legislative purpose; a disparity between the sentence and the evil to be avoided might then be a cruelty of constitutional dimensions. . . . . It seems to us that the interest of the legislature is paramount in the field of penology and the public safety. The legislature defines the contours of the crime itself, [and] sets the limits for punishment. . . . The underlying structure of the penal system is statutory; the coherence of the system is to be found in legislative direction. State v. King, 330 A.2d 124, 127-28 (Me. 1974); see State v. Benner, 553 A.2d 219, 220 (Me.1989) ([T]he power of punishment is vested in the legislative, not in the judicial department. It is the legislature, not the court, which is to define a crime and ordain its punishment. (quotation marks omitted)). [¶ 23] We have described the test for determining when a sentence is cruel and unusual as whether it is greatly disproportionate. . . and whether it offends prevailing notions of decency, Worthley, 2003 ME 14, ¶ 6, 815 A.2d at 376; whether it shock[s] the conscience of the public, [or] our own respective or collective sense of fairness, State v. Reardon, 486 A.2d 112, 121 (Me.1984); or whether it is inhuman [or] barbarous, State v. Heald, 307 A.2d 188, 192 (Me.1973). Because the Legislature is the voice of the sovereign people, King, 330 A.2d at 127, and thus expresses the people's will, only the most extreme punishment decided upon by that body as appropriate for an offense could so offend or shock the collective conscience of the people of Maine as to be unconstitutionally disproportionate, or cruel and unusual. [11] In short, our system of government assumes that the judgment of the Legislature is the collective judgment of the people. [¶ 24] Gilman was convicted of a Class C crime, punishable by a maximum of five years imprisonment. See 17-A M.R.S. § 1252(2)(C) (2009). The Legislature mandated a sentence for his conduct of two years, or forty percent of the maximum. 29-A M.R.S. § 2557-A(2XD). It deemed that penalty necessary to prevent revoked drivers with three recent OUI convictions, who have repeatedly proved that they are willing to endanger others by operating a motor vehicle while impaired, from continuing to drive under any circumstances. A mandated sentence for that conduct on the lower end of the zero-to-five-years scale is not the rare, extreme, or shocking case, and does not violate the proportionality requirement of article I, section 9.