Court Opinion

ID: 9666060
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:03:42.546256+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:23.306997
License: Public Domain

McCown, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the majority opinion with the exception of that part of the opinion dealing with the excessiveness of the sentence. My views on that score were set out in the former case of State v. Blunt, 187 Neb. 631, at page 633, 193 N. W. 2d 434, at page 436.
The defendant here took something over $100 in cash and checks from a cash register and pushed or shoved the cashier to her knees when she shut the cash register drawer on his fingers. He did not display or use or pretend to have any weapon.
It is significant that an habitual criminal charge was dismissed before he was sentenced. We have very recently held in State v. King, 196 Neb. 821, 246 N. W. 2d 477, that proportionality in sentencing ought to mean that the more serious offenders generally merit the greater punishment and that those offenders who offer the greatest menace to society deserve the greater punishment. In the case now before this court the original minimum sentence of 24% years was 4% years more than the highest minimum which could be imposed on an habitual criminal charge for conviction of any crime except murder. The minimum sentence of 16 2/3 years now imposed by this court is exactly twice as much as the highest minimum term which can be imposed for forcible sexual assault causing serious personal injury, and the maximum sentence of 35 years is 10 years more than the maximum which can be imposed for that crime.
Clearly the defendant’s prior record is bad. He is entitled to no leniency. That fact should not justify a sentence which clearly does not fit the crime. Neither *95does it authorize the court to sentence him as though the habitual criminal count had not been dismissed. Any sentence in excess of 10 years, in my opinion, constituted an abuse of discretion on the facts here. Where the court is required to enter a new sentence, as it is here, that sentence ought to reflect a more evenhanded justice. Injustice remains intolerable, no matter what proportions it may have.