Court Opinion

ID: 9685988
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:12:25.535591+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:12.307075
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(dissenting).
The defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment in the South Dakota State Penitentiary after pleading guilty to a charge of uttering a no account check of $100.00 and entering an admission of guilt to being a habitual offender. SDCL 24 — 15—4 pro*500vides: “A person sentenced to life imprisonment is not eligible for parole by the board of pardons and paroles.” Executive clemency is his only avenue of hope. As I attempt to arrive at a sense of fairness in the administration of justice in this case, this statute weighs heavily on my conscience.
At the time of sentencing, the court asked defendant if he had anything he wanted to say. He replied, “No,” whereupon the court pronounced sentence.
THE COURT: Well, I guess most anybody looking at this record would have to acknowledge you have a serious problem, if you’ve been drinking all of this time and your prior imprisonments have not had any effect on your drinking problem, so far as motivating you for change. If you get out in the near future, you’re going to be committing further crimes, so I can’t see any purpose in my extending any leniency to you at all here and I intend to give you a life sentence.
It will be up to you and the parole board to work out when you finally get out, but I think you certainly earned this sentence and certainly proven that you’re an habitual criminal and the record would indicate that you’re beyond rehabilitation and that the only prudent thing to do is to lock you up for the rest of your natural life, so you won’t have further victims of your crimes, just be coming back before Courts. You’ll have plenty of time to think this one over.
The sentence of the trial court cannot be anticipatory of the compassion of the State Board of Pardons and Paroles, for when a defendant is sentenced to lifetime imprisonment, it is beyond its jurisdiction to grant parole. Nor should this court contemplate a possible commutation of sentence through a grant of executive clemency. It is incumbent upon this court to determine the propriety of such a sentence at this juncture; another branch of government should not be burdened with rectifying this injustice.
I agree with the majority opinion that the sentence is severe. It is so severe and extreme that I find it constitutionally offensive. While this court has been traditionally reluctant to disturb a sentence on appeal, we nonetheless have long recognized the vagaries that inhere in the sentencing process. We stated in State v. Bad Heart Bull, 257 N.W.2d 715, 720 (S.D.1977): “Although punishment by imprisonment is not per se cruel and unusual it may be constitutionally offensive when the duration of the sentence prescribed is so excessive or disproportionate to the crime as to shock ‘the conscience and reason of men generally,’ ” citing State v. Becker, 3 S.D. 29, 40, 51 N.W. 1018, 1022 (1892). I do not choose to be shackled by the precedent of this court, namely, that a sentence within the statutory limits will not be disturbed on appeal. I find the language of the majority opinion especially alarming in light of the reenactment of the death penalty in this state. There are instances, though rare, where departure from this precedent is mandated. Thus, the discretion of the trial court is not boundless, nor is the function of this court merely perfunctory with regard to the review of a criminal sentence.
The United States Supreme Court has firmly embraced the concept that the Eighth Amendment bars not only punishments that are “barbaric” but also those that are “excessive” in relation to the crime committed. Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584, 97 S.Ct. 2861, 53 L.Ed.2d 982 (1977); Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 97 S.Ct. 1401, 51 L.Ed.2d 711 (1977); Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972); Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 78 S.Ct. 590, 2 L.Ed.2d 630 (1957). Although the United States Supreme Court has yet to hold a sentence cruel and unusual on the basis of length alone, its reasoning has suggested that a disproportionately long sentence would not be immune from Eighth Amendment challenge. “[I]t is a precept of justice that punishment for crime should be graduated and proportioned to [the] offense.” Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 367, 30 S.Ct. 544, 549, 54 L.Ed. 793, 798 (1910).
The proscriptions embodied in the Eighth Amendment have broad application; the *501clause “is not fastened to the obsolete but may acquire meaning as public opinion becomes enlightened by a humane justice.” Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. at 378, 30 S.Ct. at 553, 54 L.Ed. at 803. As stated by Mr. Chief Justice Warren, in an oftquoted phrase, “[t]he Amendment must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. at 101, 78 S.Ct. at 598, 2 L.Ed.2d at 642. Thus, the application of the Eighth Amendment involves an assessment of contemporary values that reflect the public attitude toward a given sanction.
We must not lose sight of the basic concept of the Eighth Amendment, namely, that a penalty must accord with “the dignity of man.” Trop v. Dulles, supra. This has been interpreted to mean in one respect that the punishment not be “excessive.” Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976). Under Gregg, a punishment is “excessive” and unconstitutional if it (1) makes no measurable contribution to acceptable goals of punishment and hence is nothing more than the pointless infliction of suffering; or (2) is grossly disproportionate to the severity of the crime.
In Hart v. Coiner, 483 F.2d 136 (4th Cir.1973), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 983, 94 S.Ct. 1577, 39 L.Ed.2d 881 (1974), the Fourth Circuit set forth four factors, central to the Supreme Court’s major decisions applying the cruel and unusual punishment clause, in determining whether the length of thé sentence imposed under the West Virginia recidivist statute was cruel and unusual because it was grossly disproportionate to the crimes involved. The Fourth Circuit considered cumulatively: (1) the nature of the offense; (2) the legislative intent behind the punishment; (3) the punishment defendant would have received in other jurisdictions; and (4) the punishment meted out for other offenses within the same jurisdiction. The analysis in Hart was adopted by the Fifth Circuit in Rummel v. Estelle, 568 F.2d 1193 (5th Cir. 1978).
The factual situations in both Hart and Rummel bear a striking resemblance to the instant case. The Fifth Circuit concluded that Rummel’s life sentence for the three crimes of obtaining money under false pretenses, intent to defraud, and passing a forged instrument was so grossly disproportionate to the offense as to constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Likewise, in Hart, the court held that life imprisonment based on defendant’s convictions of committing perjury, writing a check on insufficient funds and interstate transportation of forged checks was constitutionally excessive and wholly disproportionate to the nature of the offenses committed, and not necessary to achieve any legitimate legislative purpose.
A life sentence in South Dakota, at the time sentence was imposed herein, could be imposed on any person convicted of a Class A felony (murder) and upon any person convicted of a Class 1 felony (manslaughter in the first degree, kidnapping, arson in the first degree). Although I do not condone the issuance of worthless checks, I think it is significant that this case involves one of the most passive felonies a person could commit. The trial court equated the gravity of this offense with the most serious felonies in our state. This is why I believe it is vastly disproportionate to the crime committed and shocking to the “conscience and reason of men generally.”
Defendant was previously convicted of six felonies: three third-degree burglaries; obtaining money under false pretenses; grand larceny; and a felony DWI. Defendant is an alcoholic; in each prior conviction, alcohol had contributed to his problems with law and society. In describing the facts leading to his conviction in this case, defendant stated: “I was working in Sioux Falls, and got my check that day, was drinking and I ended up here in Rapid City with more money than I had when I started. . I knew I’d done something I didn’t know exactly what. If I would have known this, I would have picked the check up. I was drinking and didn’t remember, stopped several places.”
*502The defendant’s history and the facts of this ease mitigate against a prison cell for life. I do not presume to fully address the complex socio-philosophical questions presented by this case; whether imprisonment is intended .to serve a rehabilitative, retributive, or deterrent purpose, I leave to the legislature and sociologists. Neither is it my role to say what effect a defendant’s recidivism should properly have upon the sentencing process. I simply point out that all defendant’s offenses were alcohol-related and involved money or property. He has been in and out of our state penitentiary several times. Notwithstanding, he has remained an alcoholic and compulsive check writer. Does justice require that after a certain point is reached, we just turn the key — lock the defendant up to languish in prison for a lifetime — and close the final chapter on his life? I cannot agree that justice dictates this result.
The sentence imposed is so excessive that it reaches constitutional dimension. I would reverse and remand the case for the limited purpose of resentencing this defendant proportionate to the offense. Defendant, if he rehabilitates himself, should at least be given an opportunity to obtain parole during his lifetime.