Court Opinion

ID: 9736809
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:07:17.022594+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:54.802524
License: Public Domain

Sawyer, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent. I agree with the majority that the defendant’s conviction should be affirmed. I disagree with the analysis which would result in the defendant’s having to be resentenced.
In the case before us, it is clear after reading the transcript that the court went to great lengths to ascertain whether the defendant understood the plea agreement before it accepted the plea. The court specifically inquired of the defendant about his understanding of the agreement that had been proposed. The record reflects that the following colloquy took place between the court and the defendant:
The Court: Now, the prosecutor has made a recommendation in your case. That is the Court impose a sentence that would not exceed 8 to 20 years. Under Michigan law, we have to have two *100numbers, a minimum number and a maximum number. The minimum he’s recommending is 8 years. So, the maximum sentence the Court could impose under the prosecutor’s recommendation would be the minimum of 8 to the maximum of 20.
Do you understand that to be the prosecutor’s recommendation?
The Defendant: That I’m not supposed to get no more than eight years minimum?
The Court: Right. Eight years is the minimum under the prosecutor’s recommendation.
The Defendant: Yes.
The Court: 20 years, by law, has to be the maximum, but 8 years is what the prosecutor is making the recommendation on.
The Defendant: Yes, sir.
I find that the record clearly indicates that all of the parties to the plea agreement knew that the people would recommend no more than an eight-year minimum prison term and what that meant. Therefore, the prosecutor’s recommendation of a minimum sentence of seven years, eleven months, twenty-eight days comported with the above-mentioned plea agreement since it was less than the eight-year minimum prison term both parties had agreed to.
To say otherwise would prohibit a prosecutor from recommending less than he originally said he would, e.g., county jail time or probation. That result clearly would not advance justice. I, therefore, would affirm.