Court Opinion

ID: 9664749
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:28:16.763161+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:09.621942
License: Public Domain

Annabelle Clinton Imber, Justice, dissenting. I agree with the majority’s analysis regarding Sullivan’s second point on appeal; however, with regard to his first point on appeal, I must conclude that the circuit court was without authority to impose both the jury’s original recommended sentence of a $1,000 fine and the jury’s recommended alternative sentence of five years’ supervised probation for terroristic threatening and ten years’ suspended for false imprisonment and domestic battery. Under Ark. Code Ann. § 16-97-101(4) (Repl. 2006), the jury may recommend an alternative sentence. In this case, the jury attempted to do so. Specifically, the jury recommended a fine and, in the alternative, probation for terroristic threatening. Similarly, the jury recommended a fine and, in the alternative, suspended sentences for second-degree-domestic battery and first-degree false imprisonment. Pursuant to each recommendation, the circuit court could have lawfully imposed a fine. As to the jury’s alternative recommendation of probation and suspended sentences, the Arkansas Criminal Code mandates the imposition of an accompanying fine. Ark. Code Ann. § 5-4-301(d)(l)(A) (Repl. 2006). Thus, the circuit court could not lawfully impose what the jury had recommended in the alternative — sentences of probation and suspended sentences. In order to impose such sentences, the court had to impose fines along with the jury’s recommended alternative sentences. Therefore, the jury’s “alternative” sentence recommendations were not lawful alternative sentences as contemplated by Ark. Code Ann. § 16-97-101(4). In my view, the confusion in this case arises from the way in which the jury filled out the verdict forms coupled with the circuit court’s attempt to determine what the jury might have intended. Hypothetically, the circuit court’s sentence would have been lawful had the jury’s original recommended sentence been both a fine and imprisonment, and, in the alternative, a suspended or probationary sentence in lieu of imprisonment. Ark. Code Ann. § 5-4-301 (d)(1) (A) & (B). Yet, the jury’s original recommendation was iimited to a fine, and its recommended alternative sentences of probation and suspended sentences could not be lawfully imposed. Under these circumstances, the circuit court was without authority to impose the jury’s recommended alternative sentences. For the above-stated reasons, I must respectfully dissent.