Court Opinion

ID: 9660544
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:15:30.366155+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:20.389859
License: Public Domain

BARDGETT, Chief Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.-
I concur in that portion of the opinion which affirms the judgment of conviction.
I dissent from that portion of the opinion which affirms the sentence in this case of five years imprisonment on each of six courts to run consecutively for a total of thirty years imprisonment for the offenses of issuing six no account checks. The range of punishment for the violation of § 561.-450, RSMo 1969, is that on conviction the defendant “be punished by imprisonment by the department of corrections for a term not exceeding seven years or by confinement in the county jail for not more than one year or by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars or by both such confinement and fine.” The jury found the defendant guilty of six counts of issuing no account checks. Because he was tried under the second-offender act, the judge assessed the punishment and sentenced the defendant.
*572A portion of the dissent written by Robert G. Dowd, P. J., of the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District in this case addressed the sentencing issue, and much of which follows is taken from his dissent without use of quotation marks.
Serious doubts arise about the integrity of the sentence imposed by the trial court in its decision to require the defendant to serve all six five-year terms consecutively without any reference to the circumstances surrounding the making of the different checks. See Woolsey v. United States, 478 F.2d 139, 143-44 (8th Cir. 1973). Generally, imposition of a sentence which is within statutory limits is not subject to review except for a manifest abuse of discretion by the trial court. United States v. Hetherington, 279 F.2d 792, 796 (7th Cir. 1960). The trial court may exercise its broad discretion when sentencing within the statutory limits. However, this discretion may not be unbridled and still maintain the integrity necessary to the sentencing process. Cf. McGee v. United States, 465 F.2d 357, 358 (2d Cir. 1972). The court in McGee indicated that where the defendant is charged and sentenced on more than one count, the sentence imposed for each count must have “independent integrity”. Id. at 358. In part, it is in the trial court’s apparently automatic assessment of five years imprisonment for each count in the instant case, regardless of the circumstances peculiar to each count, that I believe there is a lack of independent integrity in the sentencing procedure. There is nothing in the record to indicate that the trial court did more than simply multiply the punishment it deemed appropriate for one offense by the number of counts against the defendant and then ordered them served consecutively. The result of the consecutive sentence order is a punishment imposed far in excess of that normally assessed for this type of nonviolent crime.1
Contained in the file that came to this Court from the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District at the time the cause was transferred, is the State of Missouri Board of Probation and Parole Investigation Report (presentence investigation report) on the appellant. It reflects that appellant has a history of writing no account and insufficient funds checks primarily in the area where he lives, and, as noted in the principal opinion, had previously been convicted of writing no account checks and had been sentenced to two terms of four years each to run concurrently. The six checks upon which he was convicted in the instant case were all written to “Town and Country Supermarket” in Farmington, Missouri, between March 25, and April 2,1978, totalling $360. If given the maximum of seven years on each charge and if made to run consecutively, the total maximum sentence would be forty-two years, which was the prosecutor’s recommendation. The presentence investigation report recommended a total sentence of twenty-one or twenty-eight years. As noted supra, the court then proceeded to sentence the defendant to five years on each of the convictions and made the sentences consecutive so as to impose a total of thirty years in the penitentiary. The court stated that it took into consideration the fact that the crimes were nonviolent, but noted that merchants lose large sums of money due to no account or insufficient funds checks.
In Missouri multiple sentences are to be served concurrently with each other unless the sentencing court expressly orders them to be served consecutively or cumulatively. Anthony v. Kaiser, 350 Mo. 748, 169 S.W.2d 47, 49 (banc 1943). Whether or not the sentences are to be consecutive is essentially within the discretion of the trial court. However, in this case making the sentences consecutive means that the defendant is sentenced to thirty years in the penitentiary for writing six no account checks. The *573legislature had established seven years as the maximum punishment for an offense of this type. Given this situation I regard the court’s order making the six five-year terms consecutive as a gross abuse of discretion. In State v. Johnson, 549 S.W.2d 348, 352 (Mo.App.1977), it was stated, “[0]ur courts have repeatedly held that a punishment which is within the statutory limits for the offense, ... is not cruel and unusual because of its duration unless so disproportionate to the offense committed so as to shock the moral sense of all reasonable men as to what is right and proper under the circumstances.” See also State v. Mitchell, 563 S.W.2d 18, 26 (Mo. banc 1978). In my opinion, the order making these sentences cumulative causes the totality of the sentence in this instance to be so disproportionate to the offenses committed that it shocks the moral sense of all reasonable men as to what is right and proper under the circumstances. It may well be that this appellant will again pass no account checks when he is released from the penitentiary, whether that occurs in three years, five years, or thirty years. That seems to be the way it is with people who write no account checks. Be that as it may, thirty years in a penitentiary is, in my opinion, so grossly disproportionate to the offenses of which this appellant was convicted that the order making them consecutive is a substantial abuse of discretion. In my opinion this Court should vacate the order of the trial court directing that these terms be served consecutively. This would allow the terms to be served concurrently.
For the above reasons I dissent from that portion of the opinion which affirms the consecutive sentencing order in this case.

. Compare this defendant’s sentence with those assessed in State v. Thomas, 438 S.W.2d 441, 447 (Mo.1969), where defendant with four prior felonies received a sentence of four years for attempting to obtain funds by “bogus” check, or State v. Polakoff, 237 S.W.2d 173, 176 (Mo.1951), wherein defendant was given only seven years prison time in an “aggravated” case (having several prior convictions) for obtaining $200 by means of a “bogus" check.