Court Opinion

ID: 9737958
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:38:26.032159+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:02.806886
License: Public Domain

*190McCown, J.,
dissenting as to sentence.
The defendant here, at a single sentencing hearing, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on a forgery charge and 10 years imprisonment on a charge of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, with the sentences to run consecutively rather than concurrently. The minimum sentence allowed by law for each of the two offenses was 1 year. The maximum sentence on the controlled substance charge was 10 years, and on the forgery count, 20 years.
The defendant had no convictions and apparently no criminal record prior to the sentencing here. She was 32 years old and the mother of two teenage daughters. In my opinion a maximum 10-year sentence on one count, and a sentence 9 years more than the minimum on the other, with the sentences to run consecutively, is excessive for a first-time criminal offender under the facts of these cases.