Court Opinion

ID: 9735905
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:36:20.879898+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:02.759628
License: Public Domain

*474Dissenting Opinion
DeBruler, J.
Article 1, § 16 of the Indiana Constitution says that “all penalties shall be proportional to the nature of the offense”. I do not see how, consistent with this mandate, the appellant may be required to serve a sentence of two to fourteen years for the offense of conspiring to commit second degree burglary, when the maximum sentence he would be required to serve had he been convicted of a completed second degree is two to five years. I would therefore remand this case to the trial court with instructions to modify appellant’s sentence to two to five years.
Appellants seeking to invoke the proportionate penalty provision and obtain a modification of sentence inevitably and understandably argue that the penalty they have received for their crime is disproportionately large. Successful appellants have supplied, as part of their argument, a model or gauge crime by which this Court is asked to judge the proportionate nature of his sentence. Each has argued that the penalty provided for by the Legislature for the gauge offense is less than that imposed on him; and that the gauge offense is similar in the criminal conduct involved but even greater than his own offense in the harm inflicted. The appellant’s conclusion is, therefore, that he should receive a sentence no greater than someone convicted of the more grievous gauge offense. In Dembowski v. State (1968), 251 Ind. 250, 240 N. E. 2d 815, the defendant was convicted of simple robbery, and the gauge supplied was the greater offense of armed robbery. In Hobbs v. State (1969), 253 Ind. 195, 252 N. E. 2d 498, the conviction was for entering to commit a felony, and the guage was second degree burglary. In Cannon v. Gladden (1953), 203 Or. 629, 281 P. 2d 233, the conviction was for assault with intent to commit rape, and the gauge supplied was rape. In the above cases, the appellate tribunals held that the penalty imposed was disproportionate in light of the lesser penalty provided for the greater gauge crime. In these cases *475the gauge crime provided an example to which appellant’s crime and its penalty could be easily compared. In this way it has been possible for courts to decide whether a penalty is proportionate to the nature of an offense.
On the other hand when appellate courts are asked to weigh the proportionate nature of a crime which is compared to another offense of a dissimilar nature they are unable to judge the relative fairness of the sentences because of the basic differences in the crimes themselves; that is differences in the type of acts involved and the kind of harm inflicted.
In Hollars v. State (1972), 259 Ind. 229, 286 N. E. 2d 166, the comparison of the crime of conviction with the gauge crime provided by appellant was much more difficult. In that case, the crime of which the appellant was convicted was forgery carrying a two to fourteen year penalty, and the gauge crime supplied was assault and battery with the intent to kill, which also carried a two to fourteen year sentence. There, the court declined to hold that two to fourteen years was disproportionately large.
In my view, then, whenever a claim is made under the proportionate penalty provision of Article 1, § 16 as is done in this case, the primary issue is whether or not the model or gauge crime proffered to the court affords the court with a valid basis for comparison. It is the relationship between the nature of the crime of conviction and the nature of the gauge crime which is at the heart of the matter. In order to provide a valid basis for comparison, the two crimes should involve criminal conduct and harm to the victim or to society of the same or substantially the same character. For example, in the case of Dembowski, supra, the two crimes being compared were simple robbery and armed robbery. In both crimes the act and harm are substantially the same type, the dissimilarities between them pointing up only variances in the degree of violence in the conduct and the degree of risk of physical injury to the victim. In Hollars, supra, we were *476asked to compare forgery and assault and battery with intent to kill. There the dissimilarities between criminal conduct and harm involved in the two offenses were so great that comparison was rendered too speculative and the Court in effect rejected the model or gauge crime as a valid basis for comparison.
In the case at bar the crime of which appellant was convicted is conspiracy to commit a felony, to-wit: second degree burglary, and the penalty provided is two to fourteen years. The gauge crime supplied by appellant’s argument is second degree burglary and the penalty provided for it is two to five years. In my view second degree burglary is a valid gauge crime for the purposes of comparison. A second degree burglary-theft is a breaking and entering into a building not a residence with intent to steal. A conspiracy to commit a second degree burglary-theft is a combination and agreement of two or more persons to commit a second degree burglary-theft coupled with some cooperative conduct on their part. DeVault v. State (1970), 254 Ind. 546, 261 N. E. 2d 232; Robertson v. State (1952), 231 Ind. 368, 108 N. E. 2d 711. The harm to society by the perpetration of these two crimes is the same. Both operate to divest some citizen of his money or goods by an actual taking from some building not used as a residence. The difference in the harms here is only that the harm in the one is potential while in the other it is actual. The differences in the criminal conduct involved in the two offenses does not prohibit valid comparison. Both crimes may be committed by two or more persons in concert. The acts constituting both crimes are done with like intent. In the completed crime of second degree burglary all steps necessary to its completion have occurred. In the conspiracy all steps are contemplated but only one has been taken, and that step has been taken as the first in a series which will culminate in the completed burglary.
Comparing then, these two offenses, I conclude the second degree burglary is a greater offense than conspiracy to commit *477second degree burglary, and that Art. 1, § 16 of the Indiana Constitution prohibits the imposition of a penalty for conspiracy to commit second degree burglary greater than the penalty for second degree burglary.
Note.—Reported in 288 N. E. 2d 258.