Court Opinion

ID: 9701697
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:32:17.088897+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:27.514774
License: Public Domain

Jacobs, J.
(concurring in result) :
I find neither prejudicial trial error nor constitutional infirmity in the sentencing procedure and therefore join my colleagues in affirming. But I do not share their belief that the administrative directive represents a wise exercise of policy and is compatible with modern views of penology and sound judicial administration. As applied here, it withdraws the sentencing power from the judge who tried the case and transfers it, not to a specialist “sentencing tribunal” (45 Neb. L. Rev., at 498), but to another judge who had nothing at all to do with the trial and who had no specialized training or skill in sentencing. It suggests .general distrust which may breed general incompetence (Holmes, J., in Graham v. United States, 231 U. S. 474, 480, 34 S. Ct. 148, 58 L. Ed. 319, 324 (1913)), and may sap much needed strength and vitality in our trial bench as a whole. And it unfortunately shackles the power of the conscientious trial judge to do full and complete justice as he finds it in the light of all of the trial testimony before him, the vital needs for the public welfare and the protection of society, *262and the individual considerations applicable to the particular defendant.
In the law review article cited in the Court’s opinion, Judge Levin discussed steps which have been taken elsewhere and might well be taken here towards eliminating unwarranted disparities in sentencing. None of those steps involved any abandonment of individualization of sentence or any disregard of individual justice. In Judge Levin’s own language, the just sentence “will reflect the divergent backgrounds and present circumstances of each individual offender, his present attitudes, and the nature of the offending act itself.” 45 Neb. L. Rev., at p. 499. No defendant, even in gambling cases, is just the same as every other defendant. He is an individual human being with his own background and future and is entitled to be dealt with as such. His sentence, though it may appropriately be severe, should nonetheless be a just one imposed by the trial judge, as in all other cases under the prevailing system, after he has carefully considered and duly weighed all of the circumstances and all of the societal and individual interests involved. See Goodman, “In Defense of Federal Judicial Sentencing,” 46 Calif. L. Rev. 497 (1958); Papers Delivered at the Institute on Sentencing for United States District Judges, 35 F. R. D. 381 (1964); First Philadelphia Judicial Sentencing Institute, 40 F. R. D. 399 (1965); cf. Hart, “The Aims of the Criminal Law,” 23 Law & Contemp. Prob. 401 (1958); Tappan, “Sentencing Under The Model Penal Code,” 23 Law & Contemp. Prob. 528 (1958); see also Model Penal Code Art. 7 (Proposed Official Draft, 1962) ; National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Model Sentencing Act Arts. I-III and Comments (1963).
Justices Schettino and Haneman agree with the views expressed in this concurrence.
For affirmance—Ohief Justice Weintraub and Justices Jacobs, Francis, Proctor, Hall, Schettino and Haneman—7.
For reversal—None.