Court Opinion

ID: 9666566
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:19:37.88471+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:30.208378
License: Public Domain

HARBISON, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I am unable to agree with the conclusion expressed in the majority opinion that the trial judge abused his discretion in the present case.
Whether probation should or should not be granted to a particular criminal offender is conceded by the majority opinion to be a matter of such great discretion with the trial judge that reversal is warranted only upon a finding of an abuse of that authority and not upon the preponderance of the evidence.
The offender in the present case pled guilty to the larceny of property from his employer. Because of the value of the property, he could easily have been convicted of grand larceny and could have received a much more severe sentence. Considerable leniency was shown by the prosecuting authorities and by the trial judge in the approval of a workhouse sentence of only nine months.
If the petitioner showed remorse for his misconduct, it was made known after he was apprehended, and not during the several months which intervened between the theft and his arrest.
While certainly the written record, as presented on appeal, would justify the conclusion that the petitioner is a proper subject for clemency, an experienced trial judge who saw and heard the petitioner and his witnesses was of a different opinion.
The majority opinion relies heavily upon the recent decision in Stiller v. State, 516 S.W.2d 617 (Tenn.1974), but it must be remembered that in that case the trial judge had granted probation. The record on appeal was found to be incomplete, and the holding of this Court was that the judgment of the trial court should be reinstated.
I am not able to agree with the conclusion expressed in the majority opinion that deterrence is not a factor, either explicit or implicit, which should enter into the thinking of a trial judge in denial of probation. It seems to be a major theme of critics of our present system of criminal justice that punishment is too indefinite and too uncertain under present rules, and that swift, sure and fixed punishment is one of the better means of attempting to curb criminal activity. It seems to me to be legitimate for a trial judge to consider whether the serving of some or all of a sentence would deter the offender from engaging in further criminal activity, and apparently the trial judge so concluded in the present case.
As pointed out by the Court of Criminal Appeals in its opinion in this case, it can hardly be contended that every criminal is entitled to a first offense without serving time. Of necessity, great weight should be given to the conclusions of the trial judges who, primarily, must administer the granting or denial of suspended sentences in this state. In the present case both the trial judge and a unanimous Court of Criminal Appeals have concurred in the denial of probation, and I am unable to conclude that the trial judge so abused his discretion as to warrant reversal by this Court.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice COOPER joins in this opinion.