Court Opinion

ID: 9655481
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:12:01.280554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:18.969625
License: Public Domain

GARTZKE, P.J.
(concurring). I agree that when sentencing defendant the trial court did not misuse its *437discretion under this state’s current case law. In my view, however, the supreme court should reconsider the factors the trial court must take into account when imposing consecutive sentences.
As the lead opinion emphasizes, the trial court has discretion to determine whether sentences for multiple convictions should run concurrently or consecutively, using the same factors that apply in determining the length of a single sentence. Cunningham v. State, 76 Wis. 2d 277, 284-85, 251 N.W.2d 65, 69 (1977). Special circumstances nevertheless exist when deciding whether sentences for multiple convictions should run concurrently or consecutively.
One circumstance is longevity. Having been found guilty of three counts of first-degree sexual assault, six counts of first-degree sexual assault as an aider and abettor and one count of abduction, defendant faced a possible total of 190 years in prison, if all sentences were served consecutively. The total is meaningless. It can never be served. The trial court recognized this to some extent when rejecting the prosecution’s recommendation of a one hundred year sentence. Because, however, defendant was twenty-five when sentenced, eighty years is as meaningless as one hundred years.
Another special circumstance is that multiple crimes may be closely related and occur in a short time span, as here. The trial court recognized this factor, again to some extent. It made the ten-year abduction sentence run concurrently with the other sentences because the abduction was “part and parcel,” as the court put it, of the assaults. A similar thought may underlie the court’s decision to make concurrent the twenty-year terms on the six assaults which defendant aided and abetted. The distinctly personal nature of the three other assaults apparently caused the court to run those sentences consecutively, without considering the short period between assaults.
A sensible approach, in my view, is that set forth in 3 ABA Standards for Criminal Justice Standard 18-4.5 (2d *438ed. 1980) on sentences for multiple crimes. ABA Standard 18-4.5 (a) is consistent with Wisconsin law in that whether sentences shall run consecutively or concurrently is left to the discretion of the trial court. ABA Standard 18-4.5 (b) proposes that authority to impose a consecutive sentence should be circumscribed by various limitations, including the following: “The court should be authorized to impose such a [consecutive] sentence only after a finding that confinement for such a term is necessary in order to protect the public from further serious criminal conduct by the defendant . . . .” ABA Standard 18-4.5 (b) (iv). The quoted requirement automatically takes longevity into account and recognizes that the future danger to the public may be less when multiple crimes are committed in a short period at one location rather than spread in time and location.
The Cunningham court, relying on prior decisions, expressly declined to follow ABA Standard 18-4.5 (b). 76 Wis. 2d at 284, 251 N.W.2d at 68. Consequently, the trial court cannot be faulted for its failure to decide if an eighty-year sentence imposed on a twenty-five year old male is necessary to protect the public from sexual assaults of the kind he committed and assisted. Had the trial court applied ABA Standard 18-4.5 (b), as defendant’s counsel requested, perhaps it would not have imposed an eighty-year sentence. A forty-year sexual assault sentence for a twenty-five year old man probably would satisfy the ABA standard.
I am authorized to state that Judge Martha J. Bab-litch joins in this concurrence.