Court Opinion

ID: 9550230
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:32:20.618708+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:46.636074
License: Public Domain

STEVENS, Judge
(specially concurring).
I concur in the opinion except in relation to the suggestion that the trial court now has the power to adjudge the defendant guilty of the offense charged together with the prior conviction which was set forth in the addendum to the information, and to so sentence him.
The details with reference to the allegation of prior conviction are adequately set forth in the opinion. The quoted admissions of the defendant establish that the *507named offense occurred in the State of Arizona in that he served time in the Arizona State Prison, hut the defendant’s admissions do not establish the county wherein the judgment of guilt was entered, nor the particular date. In my opinion, the recidivist statute may not be placed in operation by merely showing that there has been a prior conviction, but the admission of the defendant or the evidence in support of the addendum must establish the particular prior conviction pleaded in the addendum. The admissions of the defendant during his testimony were close, but in my opinion not close enough. In my opinion, it would have been appropriate for the County Attorney to ask additional questions to establish the identity of the conviction admitted and the conviction pleaded. This was not done.
The opinion states “(t)he record, however, is not clear as to whether defendant’s admission was to the prior conviction specifically set forth in the addendum, or whether it was of another offense”. With this statement I concur.
The opinion proposes a resentencing including a proper judicial determination as to the prior conviction. With this I am in disagreement. The State and the defendant have both rested. The jury has been discharged. In my opinion, it is now too late to supplement the evidence which was presented at the trial, evidence designed to establish the prior conviction or to establish that the prior conviction which the defendant admitted was in fact the same prior conviction set forth in the addendum. Under these circumstances I withhold comment as to whether the trial judge, having omitted to enter a proper judgment of guilty with a prior conviction, could now revise the record even though the defendant has not commenced the service of his sentence, he being on bond pending appeal.
In my opinion the final result of the appeal in the cause should be to vacate the sentence only and to rémand this cause for resentence under a judgment of guilt as to the offense charged, without the use of the prior conviction alleged in the addendum, the maximum permissible'sentence to be the five-year maximum specified in the statute in question.