Court Opinion

ID: 9752347
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 18:00:09.568139+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:14.916277
License: Public Domain

Grimes, J.,
dissenting in part and concurring in part:
I dissent from that part of the opinion of the court holding that the legislature may prohibit the suspension of sentences, but concur in the remainder.
In my view, such a statutory provision is a clear violation of the separation of powers. The separation of powers is fundamental to our system of government and is essential to the preservation of the liberty of our people. To preserve this separation, the judicial department must resist all enroachments upon its power whenever the issue is presented to it.
The court recognizes that the power to suspend sentences “has long been held typically judicial”. In State v. Burroughs, 113 N.H. 21, 300 A.2d 315 (1973), cited by the court, this power was referred to as “the inherent power of the court to suspend part or all of a sentence”. Id. at 22, 300 A.2d at 316. That this is and has been an inherent power of our courts has been established at least as far back as State ex rel. Buckley v. Drew, 75 N.H. 402, 74 A. 875 (1909), whatever the law may be elsewhere. The dicta in State v. Owen, 80 N.H. 426, 117 A. 814 (1922), cited by the court being by its own terms without reason or authority should not control this case.
The power to suspend sentences being an inherent judicial power, the legislature has no right to take it away. This has been established from the earliest times. Merrill v. Sherburne, 1 N.H. 199 (1818). See also Opinion of the Justices, 86 N.H. 597, 601-02, 166 A. 640, 646-47 (1933). It follows therefore that the restriction on the power of the court to suspend sentences contained in RSA 262-B:7 (Supp. 1973) is unconstitutional. State v. McCoy, 94 Idaho 236, 486 P.2d 247 (1971).