Court Opinion

ID: 9625001
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:24:36.666115+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:58.806704
License: Public Domain

Rhodes, Justice
(dissenting) :
The facts of the crime to which the defendant pled guilty in this case constitute a most brutal sexual assault. As stated in the majority opinion, the hearing on re-sentencing did not occur until two days following the initial sentence. The fact that at this hearing the trial judge made statements indicating that he had misapprehended the “rap” sheet is not controlling of his state of mind at the time the sentence was imposed. It must be borne in mind that in this two day interval the trial judge was engaged in presiding over a term of General Sessions Court and it is more than probable that many other cases were disposed of during this period. It is unreasonable to expect that he could or would retain in his memory the “rap” sheet contents of all whom he sentenced.
At the second hearing it does not appear that the trial judge had the “rap” sheet before him to refresh his memory. However, at the time of original sentencing, the “rap” *706sheet was before the trial judge, his attention specifically called by the defense counsel to the two charges on the sheet not containing a guilty disposition and he, upon request, replied that he would not consider them. In the face of these circumstances, it is not reasonable to conclude that the trial judge did consider the undisposed of charges in imposing sentence.
The Tucker case cited in the majority opinion, is to be distinguished from the present case in that in Tucker it was undisputed that the trial judge had considered certain invalid convictions before sentencing whereas here there is affirmative evidence that the trial judge, on the request of defense counsel, did not consider the charges which showed no disposition. The basic issue on which the present case turns was not present in the Tucker case.
Believing that the sentence imposed was fully justified, and that there exists no reasonable probability that the two undisposed of charges on the “rap” sheet led'the trial judge to impose a heavier prison sentence than it otherwise would impose, I would affirm.
Ness, J., concurs.
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