Court Opinion

ID: 9726656
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:02:34.01439+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:29.608633
License: Public Domain

*647Clinton, J.,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The reduction in sentence in this case can be justified only by looking behind the plea of guilty and concluding that the defendant did not actually have the specific intention “to inflict great bodily injury,” but was in fact guilty only of simple assault and battery accompanied by unexpected injury. This is what the majority opinion does. I doubt that the rather meager record justifies this conclusion.
The conclusion is founded wholly upon the testimony of the child’s mother who was not a witness to the incident and who gave her testimony after sentence was imposed and during a motion for new trial. Her version of how the injury occurred , is itself only a conclusion.
No motion for leave to withdraw the plea of guilty was made by the defendant. The defendant himself did not testify that his plea was inadvertent or that he had no actual intention to inflict great bodily injury. To the writer of this dissent, the mother’s testimony seems self-serving and designed to keep her friend out of the penitentiary.
The prosecutor, at the time the plea was entered, informed the court that medical records of the child showed that between August 5, 1972, and July 27, 1975, the child was treated for “bruises on his arms and legs, lacerations and bruises over eyes and numerous cuts and abrasions, bruises over his back and buttocks and he’s got numerous medical reports of injuries — injuries according to the medical record were a result of falling down stairs.” The prosecutor had not changed his mind when the motion for new trial was acted upon. He then said, referring to the mother’s testimony: “. . .
she describes this as a freak accident; that’s certainly not what the defendant says it was, and that’s not what the medical history of the victim shows.”
I do not believe the record before us justifies a finding that the trial judge abused his discretion in the imposition of sentence.