Court Opinion

ID: 9722448
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:32:18.78047+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:35.435232
License: Public Domain

PRENTICE, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur as to issues I and II but dissent, in part, as to issue III.
It is my opinion that the trial judge’s addition of ten years to the Class A felony sentence is not adequately supported by the record of his reasons for such action. I believe that the “seriousness of the crime” was taken into account when the Legislature fixed the penalty of thirty years. If the circumstances attendant to the commission of this particular crime rendered it more culpable than such crime generally, the judge should have related his reasons in detail sufficient to enable reviewing authority to assess them. Otherwise, the statute may be utilized to foster arbitrariness in sentencing.
I agree that the trial judge was in error when he considered the defendant’s prior armed robbery charge upon which he was acquitted, for the reasons expressed in the majority opinion. I do not agree, however, that we should assume that the sentence was, nevertheless, not “manifestly unreasonable,” because it would be manifestly unreasonable, if such factor was weighed negatively against the defendant.
Although set forth in the code as one of the criteria which may be considered as an aggravating circumstance, I believe the fourth enumerated cause “imposition of a reduced sentence or suspension of the sentence and imposition of probation would depreciate the seriousness of the crime,” to be misplaced among such criteria, as a result of an error in legislative draftsmanship. By its terms, it is a basis or criteria for denying probation or reducing the sentence. It does not purport to be a reason for increasing the sentence.
Of the three reasons stated by the trial judge for enhancing the sentence, therefore, it appears to me that one was a clearly erroneous consideration, another was outside the purview of the legislated criteria and the third was an illogical criteria, inap-posite to the tenor of the statute. Therefore, although there may very well have been good and sufficient reasons in the mind of the trial judge for adding to the sentence, upon the record before us I cannot agree that such action was reasonable. The case probably illustrates the need for trial judges to be more specific and detailed in relating their reasons for increasing or reducing the sentences prescribed by the Legislature.
Accordingly, I would affirm the conviction but remand the case to the trial court to reduce the sentence to thirty years imprisonment upon the Class A sentence.