Court Opinion

ID: 9845135
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:15:45.346213+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:52.636093
License: Public Domain

LeGRAND, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent from the majority opinion because I believe the sentence imposed by the trial court was based upon appropriate discretionary considerations.
The majority cites People v. Morse, 60 Cal.2d 631, 36 Cal.Rptr. 201, 388 P.2d 33 (1964); State v. White, 27 N.J. 158, 142 A.2d 65 (1958); and Broyles v. Commonwealth, 267 S.W.2d 73 (Ky.App.1954) as authority for its position. These cases involve trials in which juries were considering the alternatives of punishment at the same time they were determining guilt. The manifest danger of compromising one against the other makes such cases wholly dissimilar to the one at hand, where guilt had already been separately decided.
Neither is there any analogy between our own cases referred to by the majority for support. In State v. Jackson, 204 N.W.2d 915, 917 (Iowa 1973), we held judges who decided in advance how they were to impose sentence in all future drunk driving cases had abdicated their individual responsibility to act upon the circumstances before them in each case. Of course, such a prior determination violates a judge’s sentencing responsibility.
In both State v. Drake, 224 N.W.2d 476, 479-480 (Iowa 1974) and State v. Nichols, 247 N.W.2d 249, 255 (Iowa 1976) we said a trial court could not penalize a defendant for exercising his constitutional right to trial instead of pleading guilty. In State v. Milliken, 204 N.W.2d 594 (Iowa 1973) a prison term was given because defendant could not pay a fine.
No such principles are involved here. In the present case § 690.3, The Code, directs the judge to impose a term ranging from 10 years to life imprisonment. The exact term of years is left to the trial court’s discretion. Such discretion involves consideration of a wide range of factors. See State v. Stakenburg, 215 N.W.2d 265, 266-267 (Iowa 1974) and State v. Cupples, 260 Iowa 1192, 1197, 152 N.W.2d 277, 280 (1967). The ultimate responsibility of the trial judge is to select the number of years which he feels defendant should serve.
It is naive to expect a trial judge not to know or consider that sentences are seldom, if ever, served to their completion. Of course, the parole board has the final say as to how long a defendant will serve. I do not understand the trial judge challenges this right. But it is the trial judge who initially fixes the term of years based on the time he thinks a defendant should serve.
Except for some dictum in State v. White, supra, neither the majority nor the defendant has been able to cite a single supporting authority. Failure to cite authority is some indication there is none. Drabbels v. Skelly Oil Co., 155 Neb. 17, 50 N.W.2d 229, 231 (1951).
I agree with the rationale expressed in State v. Fenton, 86 Ariz. 111, 341 P.2d 237, 241-242 (1959). In that case the trial court had avowedly considered the possibility of later parole in fixing sentence. The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed, stating this was a factor properly taken into account by the sentencing judge. It is true, as defendant points out, the Arizona death statute was later declared unconstitutional but not for the manner of imposing sentence in Fenton. See State v. Endreson, 109 Ariz. 117, 506 P.2d 248, 254 (1973).
It is interesting to note that, although defendant appeals on the issue the trial court used an impermissible factor in reaching the sentence imposed, virtually all of his argument is devoted to abuse of discretion. Yet the majority says this is not an abuse-of-discretion case. I don’t think it is either; nor do I think there was error in sentencing.
*787I would affirm, leaving it, as is always the case, to the parole board to determine when defendant should be released.
MOORE, C. J., and REES and HARRIS, JJ., join this dissent.