Court Opinion

ID: 9739639
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:18:55.045013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:13.265365
License: Public Domain

BAKER, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent with the majority’s imposition of the forty-five year sentence. We agree that the trial court properly noted as a mitigator Mann’s lack of criminal history and that there exists at least one valid aggravator, the nature and circumstances of the crime. Our supreme court has stated that the maximum sentence by law should be reserved for the very worst offenses and offenders. Backer v. State, 686 N.E.2d 791, 802 (Ind.1997). It has also acknowledged that a defendant’s “lack of [a] delinquent or criminal record” should be accorded “substantial mitigating weight.” Loveless v. State, 642 N.E.2d 974, 976 (Ind.1994). With the foregoing in mind, I do not believe that the trial court or the majority has given adequate weight to the mitigator in the balancing process in determining the appropriate sentence in this case.
The presumptive sentence for voluntary manslaughter as a Class A felony is thirty years imprisonment. Ind.Code § 35-50-2-4. The trial court, at its discretion, may add no more than twenty years for aggra*1029vating circumstances and may subtract no more than ten years for mitigating circumstances. I.C. § 35-50-2-4. Thus, under normal circumstances, if the aggravator and mitigator were of equal weight, the trial court would likely be predisposed to impose the presumptive sentence. In this instance, however, the minimum sentence that the trial court could impose was thirty years as the plea agreement provided for a sentence of between thirty and fifty-years. Nevertheless, given the existence of an aggravating factor and a significant mitigating factor, the scale should still tip towards the presumptive thirty-year sentence unless the trial court can articulate reasons why the weight of the aggravator requires a greater sentence. Thus, under the circumstances of this case, I would be inclined to impose a sentence of thirty-five years or less. Accordingly, I would remand to the trial court to impose the presumptive penalty or explain how the aggravating circumstance so outweighs the mitigating circumstance that a greater sentence is warranted, without including in its explanation factors that would be elements of the offense itself.