Court Opinion

ID: 9535805
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:44:34.585337+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:20.634164
License: Public Domain

Nolan, J.
(dissenting). I dissent. The rape statute applicable to this case provides as punishment “imprisonment in the state prison for life or for any term of years.” G. L. c. 265, § 22, as then amended by St. 1974, c. 474, § 1. At the time of the commission of the rape to which these defendants pleaded guilty, another statute, G. L. c. 279, § 1, provided that the execution of a sentence of a defendant convicted of a crime punishable by death or imprisonment for life shall not be suspended. Under § 22, rape is punishable by life imprisonment. It should follow, therefore, that a sentence for rape whether for life or for any term of years, cannot be suspended. The words “or for any term of years” do not render this crime any less punishable by life imprisonment if a judge chooses to impose a sentence of a term of years. These words simply permit a less drastic sentence. It is the fact that a judge may sentence a defendant to life imprisonment that brings it under G. L. c. 279, § 1.
If the Legislature had intended the interpretation placed on the statute by the court today, it could have changed the *277language in one of two ways. First, the statute could have provided that the prohibition against a suspended sentence was operative only if a life imprisonment sentence were actually imposed. Second, the Legislature could have said that any sentence short of life imprisonment might be suspended. It has chosen neither option. However, the court today, by a route too tortuous for me to follow, arrives at an interpretation diametrically opposite the clear commandment of this statute. It refuses to accept the clarity of the language chosen by the Legislature in writing G. L. c. 279, § 1, and embarks on a journey of hermeneutics which leads to a conclusion which could not have been imagined by the lawmakers. The court has read doubt into a statute which is clear. It has constructed barriers to a simple and uncomplicated reading of a statute. The gloss which the court has given to the statute has created the very ambiguity on which it relies when it invokes the canon of strict construction against the Commonwealth. In short, it has taken lucid language and made it murky.
Accordingly, I dissent in the main from part 1 of the opinion. I join in the rest of the opinion except where consistency with my dissent from part 1 demands a different result.