Court Opinion

ID: 9577953
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:39:56.79743+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:37.016074
License: Public Domain

Shanahan, J.,
dissenting.
The majority opinion is replete with rationalization in disposition of Morrow’s sentence and fails to address the fundamental problem in the sentencing process, namely, because judges vary, sentences vary. See M. Frankel, Criminal Sentences: Law Without Order 21 (1973).
To place matters in proper perspective, in Morrow v. Parratt, *253574 F.2d 411 (8th Cir. 1978), the federal court found Morrow’s conviction was constitutionally defective, set aside that conviction, and ordered the State to retry Morrow, which the State declined to do. Consequently, the backgrounds for Morrow and his companion in crime, Harlow, have no appreciable differences and are so strikingly similar as to be indistinguishable.
As early as 1905 this court recognized that fundamental fairness requires parity in sentencing codefendants equally culpable in the commission of the same crime, and held in Keeler v. State, 73 Neb. 441, 103 N.W. 64 (1905):
When two or more defendants are tried together for the same offense, and different penalties are inflicted, and it appears from the evidence that the defendant receiving the least punishment is at least equally guilty, it may become necessary for this court to determine from the evidence, as an original question, whether the punishment of the defendants or some of them should be reduced.
(Syllabus of the court.)
This court has been given authority to modify an excessive sentence and impose the sentence warranted under the circumstances. See Neb. Rev. Stat. § 29-2308 (Cum. Supp. 1984).
In State v. Shonkwiler, 187 Neb. 747, 751, 194 N.W.2d 172, 174 (1972), this court stated: “The law still continues to strive for even-handed justice.”
More recently, in an attempt to achieve equality in sentencing codefendants, this court required a district court to “set forth its reasons for differing dispositions” regarding dissimilar sentences of codefendants. State v. Javins, 199 Neb. 38, 41, 255 N.W.2d 872, 874 (1977).
To avoid a “substantial miscarriage of justice” involving different sentences imposed on codefendants, in State v. Komor, 213 Neb. 376, 329 N.W.2d 120 (1983), this court modified a sentence of imprisonment imposed on one defendant, ordered probation in accordance with the sentence imposed on a codefendant, and noted: “Anything other than that would constitute an impermissible disparity of sentences for identical offenses.” Id. at 378, 329 N.W.2d at 122.
*254Although seals of other states may not bear “EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW,” as inscribed on the Great Seal of the State of Nebraska, nevertheless courts of other jurisdictions have justifiably taken pride in their respective systems of criminal justice which strive for equality before the law through a system wherein codefendants, with similar backgrounds and equally guilty in the commission of a crime, are treated and punished the same. See, Troyer v. State, 614 P.2d 313 (Alaska 1980); Demps v. State, 395 So. 2d 501 (Fla. 1981); People v. Bell, 95 Ill. App. 3d 803, 420 N.E.2d 497 (1981); Com. v. McQuaid, 273 Pa. Super. 600, 417 A.2d 1210 (1980); Cox v. State, 491 P.2d 357 (Okla. Crim. 1971). Thus, other courts, in attempting to avoid disparate sentences of codefendants convicted of the same crime, have applied legal logic consistent with common sense — identical facts result in identical consequences.
As Professor Jack M. Kress expressed: “Justice demands, however, that two individuals convicted of the same offense, with similar backgrounds and criminal histories, should receive sentences that are roughly the same.” J. Kress, Prescription For Justice 20 (1980). As further noted by Professor Kress, disparity in sentences will “lead the public to lose confidence in the fair and impartial administration of the criminal justice system.” Id.
Concerning unexplained and unjustifiable variations in sentences, Judge Marvin E. Frankel has observed: “The crazy quilt of disparities — the wide differences in treatment of defendants whose situations and crimes look similar and whose divergent sentences are unaccounted for — stirs doubts as to whether the guarantee of the ‘equal protection of the laws’ is being fulfilled.” Frankel, supra at 103.
There is an axiom, “Things equal to the same thing are equal to each other.” As illustrated by the majority’s opinion, that Euclidean axiom is restricted to geometry and has no value for determining the measurement, properties, or relationship of a sentencing process in reference to a system of criminal justice. In view of the newly fashioned rule enthusiastically embraced by the majority, absence of equality in sentencing codefendants results in disappointment exceeded by a greater disappointment *255that the law no longer strives for “even-handed justice” in the sentencing process and further exceeded by the greatest disappointment that the law now treats equals unequally.
Under the circumstances Morrow’s sentence is excessive. This court should have modified Morrow’s sentence to probation, the sentence imposed on Morrow’s equally culpable codefendant. It is inequitable that Morrow receive a sentence greater than the sentence imposed on Harlow for the same crime. Morrow should pay for his crime, not for the imperfections of our sentencing process.