Court Opinion

ID: 9738220
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:45:20.483155+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:04.530884
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I fully concur as to Parts (1), (2), and (3). As to Part (4), concerning the sentences imposed, I dissent.
I agree that the prior Class A misdemean- or conviction does, in itself, constitute proof of prior criminal activity. I do not, however, agree with the implication that the mere fact of an arrest demonstrates that the defendant is likely to commit crimes in the future. Moreover, the cases cited by the majority do not support such a proposition.
As noted in Tunstill v. State (1991) Ind., 568 N.E.2d 539, 544 and as quoted by the majority here:
“A record of arrest, without more, does not establish the historical fact that a defendant committed a criminal offense and may not be properly considered as evidence of prior criminal activity.”
That principle is not diminished by Ealy v. State (1997) Ind., 685 N.E.2d 1047, or Beason v. State (1998) Ind., 690 N.E.2d 277. In Ealy, the defendant had been convicted of three prior crimes, two of which involved firearms. The first of these convictions was the carrying of a handgun without a license. Secondly, the defendant was convicted of disorderly conduct for attempting to grab a' police officer’s gun from its holster. These two convictions, a misdemeanor conviction for possession of cocaine, along with a finding that the defendant had a tendency to resort to violence were used as aggravators in sentencing. Thus in Ealy, unlike in this case, the fact of prior criminal conduct had been established.
In Beason, the court correctly stated that “[a]negations of prior criminal activity need not be reduced to conviction,” but it did not state that the fact of the prior criminal activity may be inferred from the mere arrest itself. Rather, by citing to Tunstill, the court in Beason, strongly implied to the contrary. The same effect is Taylor v. State (1998) Ind., 695 N.E.2d 117 which also cites to Tunstill, and Beason.
In essence then, I find it incompatible with the holding of Tunstill, to conclude that a mere prior arrest, without some evidence that criminal activity was, in fact, involved, reflects adversely upon a defendant’s character and permits an inference that he is likely to commit crimes in the future.
As earlier noted, the prior misdemeanor conviction constitutes prior criminal activity. However, that single conviction does not, in my view, justify enhancement of both sentences for the two Class B felony convictions from the presumptive ten years to the maximum twenty years and to make those sentences consecutive.
I concur in the majority’s determination that the trial court improperly used “the need for rehabilitative treatment” as an aggravating factor, but I disagree with the remand in order to permit the trial court to belatedly enunciate a consideration which may or may not have been present at the time of the sentencing.
I also agree that the trial court misapplied the principle that a particular sentence might “depreciate the seriousness of the crime.” In concurring, however, I would note that our Supreme Court has, in several past cases applied the principle to situations in which the trial court has specifically stated that to impose a presumptive sentence rather than the specific enhanced sentence imposed would be to “depreciate the seriousness of the crime.” Ector v. State (1994) Ind., 639 N.E.2d 1014; Evans v. State (1986) Ind., 497 N.E.2d 919. Of course, the trial court here did not so state.
The end result of our consideration of the sentencing errors leaves a single justification for the cumulative forty year sentence. That is a single conviction for a Class A misdemeanor. In this light, I would reverse2 and *190remand with instructions to impose the presumptive sentence for each conviction and to order the sentences to be served concurrently.

. Recently, in Buchanan v. State (1998) Ind., 699 N.E.2d 655, our Supreme Court held that two *190aggravators did not warrant imposition of both the maximum enhanced sentences for two offenses and an order that they be served consecutively. It seems clear, therefore, that a single aggravating factor should not be used to do what two aggravators could not do in Buchanan. See Walton v. State (1995) Ind., 650 N.E.2d 1134; Staton v. State (1994) Ind.App., 640 N.E.2d 741.