Court Opinion

ID: 9855470
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:25:30.885736+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:35:47.202956
License: Public Domain

Judge Phillips
dissenting.
Before imposing sentence the court was required, I think, to find and consider the two mitigating factors referred to in the majority opinion, both of which were indisputably and credibly established by the evidence in accord with the rule laid down in State v. Jones, 309 N.C. 214, 306 S.E. 2d 451 (1983). When the credible evidence at a sentencing hearing is such that it is possible to draw different conclusions, or no conclusion at all, from it, then, of course, the choice is that of the trial judge and it cannot be upset; but when the evidence is such that only one rational conclusion can be drawn from it and that conclusion is favorable to the defendant under the principles and purposes of the Fair Sentencing Act, I do not believe that the judge is at liberty not to draw it. That would be caprice, not law. In my opinion the only rational conclusion that can conceivably be drawn from the paramour’s confirmatory and taunting telephone call to defendant is that, to say the very least, it was strongly provocative; and it can only be concluded, I think, that preventing a jailbreak is a valuable service to both law enforcement and public safety, each of which is obviously in accord with the highest purposes of sentencing. That preventing a jailbreak is not on the statutory list of mitigating factors which sentencing judges must consider is, in my opinion, immaterial since it is as strongly related to the purposes of sentencing as any of the factors that are on the list, and judges are expressly authorized to find other factors that serve the purposes of sentencing. Since the judge based the sentences imposed on aggravating and mitigating factors authorized by the Act, he had the plain duty, it seems to me, to give defendant credit for the valuable service that he admittedly and indisputably rendered to law enforcement and the public safety.