Court Opinion

ID: 9743841
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:46:28.900584+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:44.310455
License: Public Domain

Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE CRAVEN concurring in part and dissenting in part: I concur in the opinion of the majority affirming the conviction. I am not in agreement that die consecutive sentence should be affirmed, nor do I agree that this court should treat the statutory provisions of the Unified Code of Corrections as merely commanding a mathematical reduction of the sentence in this court. . The Unified Code of Corrections is applicable to cases pending upon direct appeal. (People v. Lobb, 9 Ill.App.3d 650, 292 N.E.2d 750; People v. Chupich, 53 Ill.2d 572, 295 N.E.2d 1.) As noted in the principal opinion, burglary is a Class 2 felony and the sentence for a Class 2 felony under the new Code of Corrections is a maximum term which shall be any term in excess of 1 year, not exceeding 20 years. (Ill. Rev. Stat., 1972 Supp., ch. 38, par. 1005 — 8—1.) The Code further provides, however, that the minimum term shall be 1 year unless the court having regard to the nature and circumstances of the offense and tire history and character of the defendant sets a higher minimum term which shall not be greater than one-third the maximum term set in that case by the court. In the case now under review, the trial court fixed a term of not less than 4 nor more than 7 years in the penitentiary. For reasons that appear to me to be totally insufficient, that term was made to be consecutive with a prior sentence imposed upon the defendant of 1 to. 3 years for another offense. This court, the supreme court, and, indeed every appellate court in the State, have repeatedly stated that the imposition of sentence is a function for the trial court and that a sentence as imposed would not meet appellate interference except under unusual or extraordinary circumstances. One need only look at the citator under the case of People v. Taylor, 33 Ill.Bd 417, 211 N.E.2d 673, to note the many citations to that case which announces that principle. In Taylor, the court noted that the trial judge has a superior opportunity to make a sound determination concerning the punishment to be imposed from a vantage point superior to that of an appellate tribunal. If that reasoning is applicable on appellate review of sentence, then it certainly is valid upon resentencing under new statutory guidelines as to the quantum of punishment to be imposed. It seems to me that the majority opinion violates the principie set forth in Taylor by imposing a minimum term in excess of 1 year when the trial court in fixing tibe minimum was not subject to nor apparently concerned with that language and limitation now applicable. Section 5 — 8—4(b) of the Unified Code of Corrections (Ill, Rev. Stat., 1972 Supp., ch. 38, par. 1005 — 8—4(b)) provides that the court shall not impose a consecutive sentence unless, having regard to the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and character of the defendant, it is of the opinion that such a term is required to protect the public from further criminal conduct by the defendant, the basis for which the court may set forth in the record. In this case, the defendant had a prior sentence of 1 to 3; the trial court, having an option to impose a maximum sentence of 20 years, chose instead to impose a consecutive sentence, which certainly was not required to protect the public, considering the options that were availáble. The trial court in this case could have imposed a sentence that was meaningful, realistic and would be operative to protect the public within the language of the Unified Code of Corrections without the use of a consecutive term of imprisonment, and indeed upon this record the consecutive term serves only to aggravate the bookkeeping. The imposition of a consecutive sentence of 4 to 7 in the face of a prior sentence of 1 to 3 effectively precludes consideration by the parole authorities of parole upon the first sentence and for all practical purposes, requires that the defendant serve the maximum pi the initial sentence before he undertakes to commence service upon the consecutive sentence; thus, the trial court in this case interposed itself with reference to the prior conviction. Further, that which the statute now requires prior to the imposition of a consecutive sentence is not found in this record. Thus, as I see it, the imposition of consecutive sentence was arbitrary and erroneous and I would vacate the sentence, remand this case to the circuit court with directions to impose sentence as is now contemplated by the Unified Code of Corrections.