Court Opinion

ID: 9677540
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:54:48.937376+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:56.649916
License: Public Domain

Boyle, J.
(concurring). I agree with the result and much of the analysis present in Chief Justice Cavanagh’s opinion. However, I would go further and require an objection at sentencing to preserve *22a sentencing guidelines issue. This holding and an amendment to the rules would serve to alleviate congestion in the Court of Appeals, avoid delay and the expenditure of trial court resources in dealing with circuitous remand orders, make the treatment of all defendants, indigent or not, equal, and cure the anomalous result that a defendant who failed to object at sentencing could gain a remand while a defendant who failed to object to unconstitutionally seized evidence could not. Most importantly, it would repose the responsibility for accurate application of sentencing guidelines in the sentencing judge and trial counsel.
An objection must either be specific, when challenge is made to a portion of the presentence report, or general, when a sentencing judge refuses to grant additional time to a defendant who objects to the lack of a "reasonable time” to review the presentence report under MCR 6.425(B). Thus, I would now amend MCR 6.429(C) to read as follows:
(C) Preservation of Guidelines Scoring Issue. A party may not raise on appeal an issue challenging the scoring of the sentencing guidelines unless the party has raised the issue
(1) at sentencing.
Remands should not be required unless development of a record is necessary to provide a basis for review of an issue that could not have been identified and developed in the underlying proceeding.
Riley, J., concurred with Boyle, J.