Court Opinion

ID: 9522327
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:22:43.632248+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:02:33.679162
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
dissenting.
I must dissent from the majority wherein it holds that the trial court's statement of reasons for imposing an enhanced sentence in this cause is sufficient. The Court correctly states the legal prerequisites for a valid statement of reasons, and then fails to enforce those requirements here. I agree that appellate judicial deference for the sentencing decision should be substantial, but this should not go so far as to sanction the assignment by the sentencing court of zero mitigating value upon substantial mitigating cireumstances. It is one part of the sentencing process to assign values to aggravating and mitigating cireumstances, and quite another to thereafter engage in the balancing process, and to permit the one to offset the other.
First, the record demonstrated that the appellant did not have prior criminal record or any juvenile involvement with the law. The trial court dispensed with appellant's prior record by stating:
"But we're not talking about a first offender here who's convicted of a crime of theft or burglary or robbery. We're talking about a crime of violence .;."
The implication here is that the absence of prior criminality is a mitigating circumstance in lesser crimes, but not a mitigating circumstance in violent crimes. This implication is erroneous.
Absence of prior criminality is a significant mitigating circumstance in all cases, and the sentencing court must identify it as such and give it a substantial positive value. The mere mention that appellant is a first offender is not sufficient for this purpose.
Second, there was no adequate identification and consideration of yet another mitigating circumstance. The record clearly indicated that appellant was independently evaluated by two professional agencies and the reports from both contained conclusions that he was a good candidate for probation or a minimum sentence. The one prepared by the court's own officer did end up recommending a maximum sentence because of the age of the victim, and it is perfectly obvious that such recommendation, because of its age basis, is a very minor part of the professional evaluative report. Certainly I do not mean to imply that appellant should have received either of those dispositions of probation or minimum sentence, but what I would insist upon is that the record reflect that evaluations of this important type be given reasonable and discrete consideration.
The trial court rejected the Reception-Diagnostic Center's report on the basis of a false assumption. The trial court rejected the entire report because it contained a statement that appellant may have engaged in criminal conduct due to peer pressure. The trial court interpreted "peer pressure" to mean something akin to blackmail and concluded that the Reception-Diagnostic Center's report was not credible because the trial court determined that it was impossible for Ambrose Washington, the retarded accomplice, to overbearingly influence appellant into committing the *686crime. Peer pressure, however, usually originates from within, and the motivation to do an act does not come from outside threats, but from a desire to belong to a group. Regardless, the statement on "peer pressure" was only a very minor part of the Reception-Diagnostic report, and the trial court erred in rejecting the entire re- ' port because of it.
The trial court erred when it failed to assign substantial value to the fact of absence of prior criminality and to the substance of the two professional reports. As I see the process of balancing aggravating and mitigating cireumstances, it involves placing each set upon the opposing pans of the balance scale and "reading" the result. It does not involve placing then upon the pans and then removing the mitigating values until equipoise of the judicial conscience is reached.
This case should be remanded to the trial courts with instructions to conduct a new sentencing hearing.
PRENTICE, J., concurs.