Opinion ID: 2451884
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Gravity of the Offense and Severity of the Sentence.

Text: In analyzing a penalty to determine whether it is excessive, most courts look first to the nature of the offense involved, in order to determine its relative gravity. In Solem, for example, the United States Supreme Court set out various factors to be considered in weighing the gravity of an offense relative to the severity of the penalty: Comparisons can be made in light of the harm caused or threatened to the victim or society; and the culpability of the offender... . [A]s the criminal laws make clear, nonviolent crimes are less serious than crimes marked by violence or the threat of violence... . The absolute magnitude of the crime may be relevant... . Few would dispute that a lesser included offense should not be punished more severely than the greater offense ... [,] that attempts are less serious than completed crimes ... [and that] an accessory after the fact should not be subject to a higher penalty than the principal. Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. at 292-293, 103 S.Ct. at 3011 (citations omitted). While all these factors are important to some degree, not all of them will be relevant in a particular case. There can be no doubt, however, that in the absence of a recidivist provision, a very long sentence of incarceration for what is essentially a non-violent crime will subject the penalty provision to scrutiny. As the Michigan Supreme Court noted in Lorentzen : A compulsory prison sentence of 20 years for a non-violent crime imposed without consideration for defendant's individual personality and history is so excessive that it shocks the conscience. People v. Lorentzen, 387 Mich. at 181, 194 N.W.2d at 834. The offense in Lorentzen was sale of marijuana, which is qualitatively different from the offense of sexual battery involved here. But it does not trivialize the offense of sexual battery to hold that the penalty upon conviction cannot be disproportionate to the actual misconduct. In State v. Evans, 73 Idaho 50, 54, 245 P.2d 788, 789 (1952), for example, the Idaho Supreme Court struck down a life sentence imposed on the defendant for conviction of committing lewd and lascivious acts upon and with the body of a female child under the age of 16 years. The Idaho court said: [I]t is now generally recognized that imprisonment for such a length of time as to be out of all proportion to the gravity of the offense committed, and such as to shock the conscience of reasonable men, is cruel and unusual within the meaning of the [state] constitution. [5] In other jurisdictions, statutory penalties have been found to constitute cruel and unusual punishment under similar tests. In State v. Des Marets, for example, the New Jersey Supreme Court framed the inquiry in the following manner: In considering [the defendant's claim that his sentence amounts to cruel and unusual punishment under the New Jersey Constitution], we inquire whether the nature of the criticized punishment shocks the general conscience and violates principles of fundamental fairness; whether comparison shows the punishment to be grossly disproportionate to the offense; and whether the punishment goes beyond what is necessary to accomplish any legitimate penal aim. 92 N.J. 62, 455 A.2d 1074, 1084 (1983). Similarly, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has recognized that it is possible that imprisonment for a long term of years might be so disproportionate to the offense as to constitute cruel and unusual punishment under state law. Cepulonis v. Commonwealth, 384 Mass. 495, 427 N.E.2d 17, 19 (1981). That Court noted further that [t]o reach the level of cruel and unusual, the punishment must be so disproportionate to the crime that it `shocks the conscience and offends fundamental notions of human dignity'. Id., 427 N.E.2d at 20 (quoting In re Lynch, 8 Cal.3d 410, 424, 105 Cal. Rptr. 217, 226, 503 P.2d 921, 930 (1972)). Accord Workman v. Commonwealth, 429 S.W.2d 374, 377, 378 (Ky. 1968) (reviewing court must determine whether the sentence is so disproportionate to the offense committed as to shock the moral sense of the community or violate the principles of fundamental fairness); State v. Guajardo, 428 So.2d 468, 472 (La. 1983) (reviewing court must determine whether the penalty is so severe as to be degrading to human dignity, whether it imposes arbitrary infliction of punishment, and whether it shocks contemporary notions of decency); State v. Davis, 108 Ariz. 335, 337, 498 P.2d 202, 204 (1972) (reviewing court must determine whether sentence is so disproportionate as to shock the conscience of society). In addition, courts have required, as Justice White noted in his separate opinion in Harmelin, that [t]o be constitutionally proportionate, punishment must be tailored to a defendant's personal responsibility and moral guilt. 501 U.S. at ___, 111 S.Ct. at 2716. See, e.g., People v. Bullock, 440 Mich. at 39, 485 N.W.2d at 876 (quoting Harmelin ); People v. Dillon, 34 Cal.3d 441, 480, 194 Cal. Rptr. 390, 414, 668 P.2d 697, 721 (1983) (a punishment which is not disproportionate in the abstract is nevertheless constitutionally impermissible if it is disproportionate to the defendant's individual culpability). Finally, in applying state constitutional restrictions, the courts in some jurisdictions have given consideration to the penological purposes of the prescribed punishment. In re Foss, 10 Cal.3d 910, 919, 112 Cal. Rptr. 649, 654, 519 P.2d 1073, 1078 (1974) (en banc). For example, in addition to its tripartite analysis in cases involving a claim of disproportionality, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court imposes a further test: The standard of review in considering less than a capital sentence is whether the statute bears a reasonable relation to a permissible legislative objective. This court has identified the interests served by punishment. These are (1) deterrence, (2) isolation and incapacitation, (3) retribution and moral reinforcement, and (4) reformation. Cepulonis v. Commonwealth, 427 N.E.2d at 21 (citations omitted). Accord State v. Des Marets, 92 N.J. at 82, 455 A.2d at 1084 (reviewing court must determine whether the punishment goes beyond what is necessary to accomplish any legitimate penal aim). There can be little doubt that the eight-year-old victim in this case was traumatized to some degree when the defendant briefly rubbed her chest under her clothes and her genital area over her clothes, although not all would find it as theoretically damaging as does the majority here. There can also be no doubt that such activity should be proscribed by law. The question is whether the mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years imprisonment is an excessive penalty for such behavior and therefore cruel and unusual under Article I, Section 16 of the Tennessee Constitution. Although labelled as aggravated sexual battery for purposes of Tennessee's current criminal code, the misconduct in this case has historically been identified as child molesting or child fondling and punished either as a misdemeanor or a lesser-grade felony. Prior to 1961, the offense of assault and battery on a young female under circumstances not amounting to an attempt to commit rape was treated as an attempt to commit a felony, and was punishable by one to five years incarceration, or as the lesser included offense of assault and battery, punishable as a misdemeanor by imprisonment of less than a year accompanied by a fine. See, e.g., Brown v. State, 65 Tenn. 422 (1873); State ex rel. Hull v. Rimmer, 129 Tenn. 383, 386, 164 S.W. 1148 (1914). In 1961, the legislature amended then T.C.A. § 39-606, proscribing assault with intent to carnally know a female under the age of 12, by adding as an offense assault with intent to sexually molest or fondle a child under the age of 12. Acts of 1961, ch. 90, § 1. The newly defined offense continued to carry a sentence of one to five years for first-time offenders. Id. The fondling statute remained in effect until 1978, when it was repealed, effective May 11, 1978. Acts of 1978, ch. 937, § 10. On that date, the Sexual Offenses Law of 1977 took effect, and sexual contact with a child under 13 years of age became criminal sexual conduct in the second decree, punishable by two to 15 years imprisonment. T.C.A. § 39-3704 (Supp. 1978). This provision was to remain on the books for only a year. In 1979, yet another new sex offense statute was adopted, this one called The Sexual Offenses Law of 1979, T.C.A. § 39-3701 (Supp. 1979). The 1979 act created the offense of sexual battery, defined as unlawful sexual contact with another person. T.C.A. § 39-3704 (Supp. 1979). In turn, sexual contact was defined as the intentional touching of the victim's or actor's intimate parts or the intentional touching of the clothing covering the immediate area ..., if ... reasonably ... construed as being for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification. T.C.A. § 39-3702 (Supp. 1979). If the victim was less than 13 years old, the offense was elevated to aggravated sexual battery. The initial penalty provisions of the 1979 law were ambiguous, but they were clarified in the next session of the legislature. Acts of 1980 (Adj. S), ch. 463, § 3, and ch. 788, § 3. If the victim was 13 years old or older, the offense was punishable by not more than five years in the penitentiary, essentially the same penalty as provided under the prior codes. T.C.A. § 39-3706 (1980 Supp.). But, if the victim was younger than 13, the offense became aggravated sexual battery, punishable by a minimum of five years and a maximum of 35 years incarceration. T.C.A. § 39-3704 (1980 Supp.). Although this escalation of the gravity of the offense, at least as to young victims, was substantial, a first offender convicted of fondling an eight-year-old would have faced a Range I sentence of five to 20 years, under the new sentence calculation provisions enacted in 1982. See T.C.A. § 40-35-109 (1982). A Range II sentence, with a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of 35 years, was reserved for especially aggravated offenses and for persistent offenders only. See T.C.A. § 40-35-109(c) (1982). Three years later, as part of a legislative package aimed at preventing child sexual abuse, the General Assembly amended what was then T.C.A. § 40-35-107 to mandate Range II sentences for offenses involving the unlawful sexual abuse, molestation, fondling or carnal knowledge of a child under the age of thirteen. Acts of 1985, ch. 478, §§ 3, 29, codified as T.C.A. § 40-35-107(5). Thus, with reference to T.C.A. § 39-2-606, the aggravated sexual battery statute under which defendant Harris was convicted, the mandatory minimum sentence became 20 years imprisonment, regardless of the fact that there were no aggravating or extenuating factors involved other than the age of the child. Of course, this factor had already been used to elevate what would otherwise have been sexual battery into aggravated sexual battery. Hence, as punishment for the relatively innocuous act of touching the buttocks of a 12-year-old child over clothing, if committed for the purpose of sexual gratification, an accused became subject to a mandatory prison sentence of at least 20 years. In a matter of less than a decade, the penalty for conviction of an offense punishable by a minimum sentence of a year (or less) had been increased five-fold and then 20-fold. Still, it might be possible to defer to legislative prerogative and bow to the General Assembly's wisdom in providing such a severe sentence for child fondling, were it not for the fact that this obviously harsh penalty turned out to be short-lived. For when the new Criminal Sentencing Reform Act of 1989 was adopted, effective November 1 of that year, the penalty for a Range I offender found guilty of aggravated sexual battery was reduced to a minimum of eight and maximum of 12 years. T.C.A. §§ 39-13-504 and 40-35-112(a)(2). Only a career offender or a persistent offender under T.C.A. §§ 40-35-107  108 is now subject to a minimum sentence of as much as 20 years. It seems apparent that the 20-year minimum sentence imposed on this defendant must be considered unusual, if for no other reason than its limited temporal applicability  it was mandated by statute only from July 3, 1985, until November 1, 1989, a period of just over four years. Like Billy Joe Harris in this case, similarly situated convicts currently serving mandatory prison sentences of 20 years and over for fondling a child suffer not from the result of principled penology, but from the sheer fortuity of timing. Had they committed the same offense only a matter of months earlier or later than they did, the minimum penalty would have been a fraction of the sentence they actually received. Moreover, there is little doubt that the 20-year mandatory sentence at issue here would be found invalid under most, if not all, of the state constitutional standards discussed above. The facts of this case demonstrate that, as committed, the offense was nonviolent and did not involve even a threat of violence. As far as the record shows, it was an isolated event, committed by an individual who otherwise presents no threat to society. The offense was committed against a small child and is, therefore, appropriately subject to an enhanced penalty. But the mandatory imposition of a 20-year sentence robs the sentencing judge of the ability to tailor an appropriate penalty for an individual offender, within a reasonable statutory range of punishment. To quote the New Jersey Supreme Court in Des Marets, the sentence imposed here both shocks the conscience and violates principles of fundamental fairness. To impose a 20-year sentence to such an offense also goes beyond what is necessary to accomplish a legitimate penal aim. This last point can best be seen by viewing the penalty in the abstract. As one member of the Idaho Supreme Court observed in State v. Evans : In other words, a boy 18 years of age, or even less, could ... be sent to the penitentiary for life for engaging in a necking party with a girl 15 years, 11 months and 29 days old. There is no statute anywhere in the United States, or anywhere else, that has been called to our attention, that contains such a gross injustice. State v. Evans, 73 Idaho at 62, 245 P.2d at 795 (Keeton, J., dissenting). [6] As further proof of cruelty, a brief comparison of the defendant's sentence with sentences imposed for other offenses in Tennessee and on like offenders in other jurisdictions is convincing proof that the sentence in this case is unconstitutional.