Court Opinion

ID: 9691914
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:25:38.171571+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:28.293816
License: Public Domain

BRODERICK, C.J.,
dissenting. Because I agree with the ruling of the trial court that the defendant, Michelle Chrisicos, is ineligible for a sentence of home confinement under the terms of RSA 262:23 (2004) (amended 2006), I respectfully dissent.
Our review of the trial court’s interpretation of a statute is de novo. Petition of State of N.H. (State v. Laporte), 157 N.H. 229, 231 (2008). “In interpreting a statute, we first look to the language of the statute itself, and, if possible, construe that language according to its plain and ordinary meaning.” Id.
RSA 262:23, I, provides, in pertinent part:
Any sentence of one year or less imposed pursuant to this paragraph shall be served in a county correctional facility. The sentencing court may order that any such offender may serve his or her sentence under home confinement pursuant to RSA 651:19 based on the rules and regulations of the county correctional facility where the sentence is to be served for the minimum mandatory term or any portion thereof, provided the offender first serves 14 consecutive days of imprisonment prior to eligibility for home confinement. Habitual offenders shall only be eligible for the home confinement program once per lifetime.
The defendant contends that the plain language of RSA 262:23,1, does not base eligibility for a sentence of home confinement upon the number of habitual offender violations a defendant is charged with or convicted of, but rather limits eligibility to “once per [the defendant’s] lifetime.” RSÁ 262:23, I. This argument begs the question. The statute provides that habitual offenders shall only be eligible for the home confinement program once per lifetime. Thus, the issue is what the legislature intended by the use of the term “eligible.” The defendant would construe the statute to say that she is *411“eligible” to be sentenced to the home confinement program for her first offense of driving while certified as a habitual offender and for her second offense of driving while certified as a habitual offender. In my view, that would make her eligible twice for the home confinement program, contrary to the plain language of the statute.
While I believe the plain language supports the trial court’s ruling, even if I were inclined to agree that the statute could be reasonably read in the manner asserted by the defendant, I would not do so. We will not construe a statute in a manner that would render it unconstitutional when it is susceptible of a constitutional construction. State v. Johnson, 134 N.H. 570, 576 (1991). In my view, the defendant’s construction would violate equal protection principles. For example, suppose that the defendant had a twin sister who was also arrested for driving while certified as a habitual offender on the same two days as the defendant. Because of a heavy workload at the county attorney’s office, or perhaps due to a delay in the meeting of the grand jury, the sister was not indicted after her second arrest as quickly as was the defendant, resulting in the defendant being tried on both of her indictments at one trial, but her sister being tried on her two indictments in two separate trials. Both the defendant and her sister are then convicted on all charges. Under the defendant’s interpretation, despite the fact that both the defendant and her sister committed the same crimes on the same dates, the defendant would be eligible for home confinement on her second conviction because she was convicted of both charges at a single trial, while her sister would be required to serve her sentence on her second conviction in the county correctional facility simply because she was convicted of both charges after two trials. I fail to see any rational basis that would justify such disparate treatment of defendants who, for all relevant purposes, are identically situated. Indeed, putting constitutional considerations aside, the injustice of mandating jail in one case while allowing home confinement in the other due solely to fortuitous events such as how often a grand jury meets would require me to reject the defendant’s construction of the statute. See State v. Fournier, 158 N.H. 441,446 (2009) (court construes statutes to avoid absurd or unjust results).
Furthermore, the defendant’s construction skews the criteria for joining or severing charges. Whether to join the defendant’s charges, for example, should turn upon such factors as whether failure to do so would constitute harassment, would unduly consume the time or resources of the parties, or would be prejudicial. See, e.g., SUPER. Ct. R. 97-A. Under the defendant’s construction of the statute, however, joining the offenses would mean that the defendant becomes eligible for home confinement on both charges if convicted, while trying them separately would mean that the defendant *412faces a mandatory sentence in jail if convicted. A defendant who would otherwise object to joinder because her defense to one charge is substantially stronger than her defense to the other, for example, might well choose to incur the prejudice of joinder in order to ensure her eligibility for home confinement if she is convicted of both. On the other hand, a prosecutor who would otherwise seek joinder because it would further judicial economy and save the resources of the parties might instead choose to oppose joinder to prevent the possibility of the defendant being twice convicted yet avoiding the mandatory jail sentence. I would not construe the statute so as to introduce such considerations into the joinder calculus.
Finally, our case law demonstrates that there should be no significance attached to the fact that the defendant’s two convictions resulted from one trial instead of two. It is important to note that we are not here considering two charges that arose out of one “criminal episode.” Cf. State v. Gordon, 148 N.H. 710, 714 (2002) (treating multiple convictions committed “simultaneously during a single spasm of criminal activity” as a single conviction for purposes of sentence enhancement (quotation omitted)). Rather, the defendant committed two separate crimes on two separate occasions, several months apart. Our case law is clear that for sentence enhancement purposes, a defendant can be subjected to an enhanced penalty for a second conviction even when the first and second convictions are both obtained in a single adjudication, as long as each conviction arose out of a separate and distinct criminal episode. See Petition of State of N.H., 152 N.H. 185, 191 (2005) (stating that with exception of sentence of life without the possibility of parole, trial court may impose enhanced penalties of up to forty years in prison for each conviction beyond the first, “even when multiple convictions are obtained in a single proceeding”); State v. Melvin, 150 N.H. 134,136-37 (2003). Thus, we have previously concluded that for purposes of sentencing, it matters not whether the two convictions were obtained at a single trial or at two trials.
Similarly, in State v. Abram, 156 N.H. 646 (2008), we rejected the State’s invitation to adopt the “sentencing package” principle, pursuant to which courts presume that when a defendant is found guilty on a multi-count indictment, there is a strong likelihood that the trial court will craft a disposition in which the sentences on the various counts form part of an overall plan. Abram, 156 N.H. at 654-55. In rejecting this principle, we quoted approvingly the Ohio Supreme Court, which noted that the rationale for the principle fails because the state’s sentencing scheme is “designed to focus the judge’s attention on one offense at a time.” Id. at 655 (quotation omitted).
These cases demonstrate that for purposes of sentencing, each of the defendant’s convictions stands alone. Each conviction is considered by itself *413when the defendant is sentenced. If the defendant is sentenced after a single trial for two offenses, he becomes “eligible” for enhanced penalties for the second offense based upon his conviction for the first offense, just as he would if he were twice convicted after two separate trials. Similarly, in my view, although the defendant in this case was “eligible” for the home confinement program when she was sentenced for her first conviction, she was no longer “eligible” for that program when she was sentenced on her second conviction, just as she would not have been eligible had her sentence for her second conviction been imposed following a second trial. In either case, upon being sentenced for her first conviction, she thereby exhausted her onee-in-a-lifetime eligibility for home confinement.
Because the trial court’s construction of the statute comports with the statute’s plain language, while the defendant’s construction is at best unjust and at worst unconstitutional, I respectfully dissent.