Court Opinion

ID: 9657294
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:19:16.69063+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:42.919694
License: Public Domain

R. L. Tahvonen, J.
(concurring). I write separately to distinguish this case from People v Oscar Moore, 164 Mich App 378; 417 NW2d 508 (1987), and to explain my concurrence here in the face of my dissent there.
In Moore, the defendant was convicted of a number of crimes, among them armed robbery. He was sentenced to a term of one hundred to three hundred years in prison for armed robbery. The pertinent statute provided that armed robbery was "punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for life or for any term of years.” MCL 750.529; MSA 28.797. On appeal to this Court, the majority vacated the sentence, holding that — as a matter of statutory construction — a term of years sentence must be less than the defendant’s life expectancy at the time of sentencing.11 dissented, writing that the Legislature had unambiguously authorized a *657sentence for any term of years and that restrictive judicial construction was neither necessary nor appropriate.
In this case, the Legislature unambiguously expressed a contrary intent. The pertinent habitual offender statute authorizes imprisonment "for life or for a lesser term.” MCL 769.11; MSA 28.1083. The same regard for a simple reading of plain language that prompted my dissent in Moore commands my concurrence here. If any term of years means "any” in Moore, then a lesser term of years must mean less than life here. That being so, I join the majority’s opinion and the result it requires.2

 Neither opinion in Moore addressed the question whether the one hundred to three hundred year sentence should shock the conscience of the Court. People v Coles, 417 Mich 523; 339 NW2d 440 (1983). Obviously, a sentence that bears no reasonable relationship to any legitimate sentencing goal should be vacated on appeal. For that reason, a truly Draconian term of years sentence is better theater than law.

 The incongruity created by taking the Legislature at its word is apparent. An armed robber can receive a longer sentence than a third-felony offender. Nonetheless, I do not view the judiciary as possessing a general commission to bring order to legislative chaos in the guise of "statutory construction.”