Court Opinion

ID: 9537923
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:27:14.9657+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:55:24.402064
License: Public Domain

CAMERON, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
I would agree that the 18-year-old defendant’s alcoholic and completely unprovoked conduct leaves much to be desired. I do not agree, however, that his conduct is such as to compel a felony conviction, and under the authority of A.R.S. § 13-1717 I would reduce the sentence and punishment making the crime a misdemeanor rather than a felony as allowed by the statute, A.R.S. 13-541, under which the defendant was charged.
I am fully aware that the reduction of sentence under this statute (A.R.S. 13-1717) should be used with extreme caution. The trial court is generally considered to be in the best position to evaluate the possibilities for the defendant’s rehabilitation and the sentence which should be imposed upon the defendant, and will not be modified unless it is excessive and results in an abuse of discretion. State v. Salinas, 95 Ariz. 62, 386 P.2d 790 (1963).
However, our Supreme Court has stated: “According to modern legal thought reformation and rehabilitation of offenders rather than retribution are the important goals of criminal jurisprudence. Williams v. People of State of New York, 337 U.S. 241, 69 S.Ct. 1079, 93 L.Ed. 1337 (1949). To state this dominant objective is to say—borrowing the words of the late Dean Roscoe Pound—that ‘criminal law [is] made a means to social ends * * *. [Punishment is to be governed by its social end and is to be fixed with reference to the future rather than to the past.’ I Pound, Jurisprudence, 134 (1959).” State v. Maberry, 93 Ariz. 306, 308, 380 P.2d 604, 605 (1963).
Since rehabilitation is the primary goal in sentencing, and considering the defendant’s age, State v. Killian, 91 Ariz. 140, 370 P.2d 287 (1962), I would, upon the facts of this case, reduce the sentence to provide for a misdemeanor conviction rather than a felony conviction.