Court Opinion

ID: 9505372
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 20:04:09.677714+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:24.769242
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur in parts I and III of the Court's opinion. I respectfully dissent from part IL.
Article VII, § 4, of Indiana Constitution provides that "[the Supreme Court shall have, in all appeals of criminal cases, the power to review and revise the sentence imposed." To sustain a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, Indiana law requires the weight of the properly proven statutory aggravating cireumstances to be greater than the weight of any mitigating cireumstances that exist. Ind.Code § 35-*75150-2-9; Greer v. State, 749 N.E.2d 545, 549 (Ind.2001). I believe the Court should revise the sentence imposed here because weight of the sole aggravating circumstance does not, in my view, outweigh the combined weight of the mitigating cireum-stances.
As discussed in the Court's opinion, the trial court's sentence was based on its finding that two statutory aggravating circumstances existed. In part I of the Court's opinion, the Court holds that the trial court's finding of the existence of one of those statutory aggravating cireum-stances was contrary to law. The sole existing statutory aggravating circumstance, intentional killing while committing child molesting, is without question a very weighty aggravating circumstance. But I believe that its weight is no greater than the combined weight of the mitigating circumstances.
First, Leone pled guilty to the crime charged. A guilty plea demonstrates a defendant's acceptance of responsibility for the crime and at least partially confirms the mitigating evidence regarding his character. Scheckel v. State, 655 N.E.2d 506, 511 (Ind.1995). A guilty plea further extends a benefit to the state and the victim or the victim's family by avoiding a full-blown trial. Id. Thus, a defendant who pleads guilty deserves to have some mitigating weight extended to the guilty plea in return. Id. Accord, Widener v. State, 659 N.E.2d 529, 534 (Ind.1995); Hardebeck v. State, 656 N.E.2d 486, 493 (Ind.Ct.App.1995), trans. denied. See also Duvall v. State, 540 N.E.2d 34, 35 (Ind.1989); Davis v. State, 477 N.E.2d 889, 899 (Ind.1985) (death penalty case); Lang v. State, 461 N.E.2d 1110, 1112-1118 (Ind.1984); Singer v. State, 674 N.E.2d 11, 14 (Ind.Ct.App.1996).
Second, Leone was adjudged by the trial court to be guilty but mentally ill. As best as I can determine, this is the first case in which we have ever affirmed a sentence of life imprisonment without parole on a person found guilty but mentally ill following a guilty plea. This Court has repeatedly reduced lesser sentences where inadequate weight has been given to the mitigating weight of an adjudication of guilty but mentally ill. See Crawford v. State, 770 N.E.2d 775, 783 (Ind.2002) (reduction of defendant's 65 year sentence to the presumptive 55 years in part due to the "significant mitigating circumstance" of defendant's mental illness); Weeks v. State, 697 N.E.2d 28, 31 (Ind.1998) (reduction of defendant's 60 year sentence to the presumptive sentence of 50 years due to defendant's mental illness); Archer v. State, 689 N.E.2d 678, 685-86 (Ind.1997) (defendant's long-standing mental illness should have been considered as a mitigator and therefore warranted a reduction in defendant's total sentence); (Gambill v. State, 675 N.E.2d 668, 677-78 (Ind.1996) (defendant's mental illness was a substantial mitigator calling for the imposition of the presumptive sentence); Mayberry v. State, 670 N.E.2d 1262, 1271 (Ind.1996) (finding an abuse of discretion where trial court failed to consider defendant's mental illness as a mitigator; remanded for imposition of presumptive sentence); Barany v. State, 658 N.E.2d 60, 67 (Ind.1995) (finding a relationship between defendant's mental illness and the commission of the crime; remanded for imposition of presumptive sentence).
Third, as the Court points out, lack of a criminal record must be given substantial weight as a mitigator. Edgecomb v. State, 673 N.E.2d 1185 (Ind.1996). The Court finds that this weight should be diminished in Leone's situation for the sole reason that he was convicted of auto theft when he was 24 years old. I would find that a single, non-violent youthful encounter with *752the law is insufficient to deprive him of the benefit of the lack of a criminal record mitigating cireumstance.
Fourth, the Court sets forth in footnote 3 an additional twelve mitigating circumstances found by the trial court to exist. Several of these relate to the profound negative impact on his personality of the multiple strokes he suffered in 1997. Several others relate explicitly to the mental illness from which he suffers.
I would find that the combined weight of these mitigating cireumstances is at least equal to the weight of the sole remaining aggravating circumstance and would reduce Leone's sentence of life imprisonment without parole to one of a term of years.