Court Opinion

ID: 9857807
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:02:09.78598+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:46:23.839973
License: Public Domain

CARTER, Justice
(concurring specially).
I fully concur in the conclusions reached in the opinion of the court and in the result. I write separately to express my view that it is not necessary in order to reject the defendant’s equal protection claim to identify similarities and differences between different crimes and reconcile the differing sentences provided therefor. The legislature has total discretion in that regard, and no equal protection claim should be recognized with respect to different punishments for different statutory crimes. If a particular statutory sentence is to be challenged as being too severe, this must be done by a proportionality challenge under the Eighth Amendment to the federal constitution.