Court Opinion

ID: 9849413
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:39:54.935871+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:23.557098
License: Public Domain

*209HEFFERNAN, C.J.
(dissenting). I dissent for all the reasons set forth in the dissenting opinion of Chief Justice Beilfuss, Justice Abrahamson, and myself at page 711 of In re Felony Sentencing Guidelines, 113 Wis. 2d 689, 335 N.W.2d 868 (1983).
Additionally, I am obliged to add that the majority in the instant case continues to fail to appreciate the nature of sentencing guidelines. Sentencing guidelines are not designed to, and would not, operate to limit or restrain the sentencing discretion of a trial judge. Their purpose is to aid the trial judge in the exercise of that discretion. The legislation specifically provided that failure to follow guidelines does not establish a right of a convicted felon to appeal. Appeals would continue to be judged on the basis of fidelity to the standards of McCleary — not on whether a guideline was followed. Guidelines are not to be controlling.
Both the majority opinion and the concurrence rely heavily upon McCleary v. State, 49 Wis. 2d 263, 182 N.W.2d 512 (1971), an opinion I authored for this court. The concurring opinion correctly appreciates that Mc-Cleary does set limits upon trial court discretion, because it requires a judge, in fact, to exercise discretion and to demonstrate on the record that such discretion has been exercised on the basis of pertinent facts and on a correct understanding of the law. Thus, sentencing discretion already has been given focus and definition by the McCleary guidelines. McCleary was, however, but a feeble, though significant, first step in bringing some rationality to sentencing discretion.
It is my belief that the widespread use of the McCleary methodology has made sentencing in Wisconsin more rational than it otherwise would be. But what the Mc-Cleary methodology fails to do is to give a particular trial judge the benefit of the accumulated wisdom of other trial judges in the exercise of sentencing discre*210tion in similar cases. In McCleary, we expressed the hope that an expressed rationale for a particular sentence in articulated circumstances would, over a period of time, result in the development of a common law of sentencing which takes into rational consideration all of the factors relating to the crime and to the adjudged felon.
McCleary was a successful first step, but the goal of the philosophy behind McCleary has not reached fruition. Information which has been garnered by the McCleary technique over the years can only be put to appropriate discretionary use by judges by first organizing the information in respect to the past judicial exercise of sentencing discretion in a manner that the reasoning of other judges may be used as guidelines by a sentencing judge. This information constitutes a body or consensus of judicial decisions that may be used, in a sentencing judge’s discretion, in the same way — although not with binding precedential effect — that any common law judge uses and relies upon the decisions of other judges who have addressed the same problem. By consulting the various factors that make up the guidelines, the sentencing judge can exercise personal discretion to decide whether or not to follow the guidelines. A statement of why the judge might not in a particular case follow a guideline would not differ one whit from what the trial judge is required to set forth under the McCleary methodology.
Any judge knows that sentencing judges confer with one another and compare the factors which led one judge to give a particular sentence while another, under differing factors, may have imposed a different sentence for the same statutory offense. Thus, “sentencing guidelines” and their constituent factors, in an informal sense, have always been used to assist a trial judge in exercising discretion. Why not compile that past experience so all judges may have ready access to the information that *211has heretofore been informally and laboriously gleaned? This is exactly the service that will be rendered by the guidelines.
While one dissenting opinion indicates that the decision made by the court was faulty because the court failed to provide a mechanism for citizen participation in evaluating the merits of the recent legislation, I find this statement incorrect and irrelevant. The court held a public hearing on the question of adopting sentencing guidelines only a year ago, in 1983. Extensive reports were filed, and the court gave its careful consideration to the plethora of material available to it. We have been fully exposed to the pros and cons of the efficacy of sentencing guidelines.
The present matter presents a closely related, though slightly different, aspect of the problem — what entity shall assume the responsibility for establishing guidelines. That question was, however, addressed in the court’s consideration of 1983 (see concurring opinion of Justice Day, at 710). Hence, the legislative option was understood by the court then.
After a public hearing was held in 1983, at which all were free to attend and speak, the rejection in 1983 of the court-mandated guideline experiment was a statement of the majority’s position that guidelines, if they were to be undertaken, would be by legislative action, not by a court decision. Thus, the court decision to rely on a legislative solution was made over a year ago and on the basis of full information. There is nothing new in the present matter, save that the legislature created an opportunity for the court to reconsider its earlier position.
Additionally, I have found no reluctance on the part of lawyers, public officials, or those concerned with sentencing procedures to express their opinion on this matter. Nor have I noticed any reluctance on the part of any citizen to contact any member of this court in respect to *212any nonadjudicative, legislative, or rule-making decision. The author of this dissent received numerous communications from concerned persons expressing a position on the guideline legislation. These communications were available to all members of the court. These communications, which included a statement by all the chief judges of the state, formally requested this court to assume the responsibility for further study and implementation of sentencing guidelines. No writer addressing the author of this dissent favored the formulation of guidelines under the aegis of the legislature. This court had a clear statement of where the sentiment of the concerned public lay — to have the court, not the legislature, implement the guideline study.
I cannot, on the ground that we have failed to set up a redundant mechanism to elicit the same information we had acquired less than a year before, absolve my brethren who have spurned the express wish of those who appeared before us in 1983 and those who have communicated with the court or its members in respect to the question before us. To assert that in some way another hearing or information-gathering procedure would have elicited more meaningful citizen expression of opinion, would have contributed to our store of knowledge, or would have changed the result in the present matter is irrelevant fantasy.
While I disagree with my brethren who are in the majority in this proceeding, I cannot express any great alarm at the upshot of the matter or with their resolution of the problem. True, we have avoided a responsibility which optimally should be that of the court. True, we have washed our hands of the responsibility for a difficult and tedious task. True, we ha.ve submitted a “white paper,” appropriate or inappropriate, stating that we as a court system are to be absolved from any responsibility for erroneous terms of incarceration, and have stated that the fault is not ours but that of the parole board or *213the legislature. True, we have acted, in my opinion, inconsistently with our position on judicial independence by refusing to exercise what I consider to be a judicial function when the legislature gave us the opportunity of rectifying our erroneous failure to exercise our powers as memorialized for posterity in the court’s opinion of July 1, 1983. Yet, by our present decision, we will have sentencing guidelines, although not set up under the aegis of this court.
As a practical matter, there will be no difference in the operation of our courts whether we set up the guidelines or the legislature does so. I predict that ten years from now there will be substantial satisfaction with the use of sentencing guidelines. Happily, in any event, we will be using a device which will aid our trial judges in the exercise of judicial sentencing discretion and not impede or hinder it. While I would much have preferred that the court clean its own augean stables, I welcome in this instance the legislature’s action, which now has been given this court’s imprimatur by the decision of the majority.
Nevertheless, it is my belief that the task could better have been done under the supervision of this court. To do so would comport with our constitutional duty to administer the courts. Art. VII, sec. 3(1), Wisconsin Constitution. To the extent we have neglected that constitutional duty, the legislature has determined, correctly under the circumstances, to remedy our omission. The important fact now is that sentencing guidelines will be responsibly established. These guidelines can only have the salutary effect of aiding trial judges in their intelligent exercise of discretion. While I dissent from the majority, the end result — the establishment of sentencing guidelines by the legislative direction — would ensue under the statute even if the court at this late juncture had not acted at all. In the absence of affirmative action by the court seeking the opportunity to undo our error of a year ago, the opinions filed today are but a tempest *214in a teapot. We will have sentencing guidelines! Undoubtedly, they will be good ones, which will substantially aid beleaguered trial judges, result in the more carefully articulated use of the McCleary standards, and will tend to ensure that criminals who are similarly situated will be treated similarly, irrespective of where in the state sentencing takes place. Trial judges will be able to use the accumulated wisdom and experience of their peers. I applaud the legislature’s wisdom though I deplore this court’s omission to act timely and affirmatively on an aspect of justice that, initially at least, falls within this court’s constitutionally prescribed duty.