Court Opinion

ID: 9725348
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:42:31.857159+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:14.405806
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur in the first four sections of the majority opinion, but dissent to the fifth section relating to sentencing. The majority holds that, for purposes of sentencing, evidence of a defendant's prior conduct which may have been in violation of some criminal statute is essentially unrestricted. This holding goes too far. I.C. 85-88-1-7(b)(2) permits the sentencing court to consider the defendant's "history of criminal or delinquent activity." Criminal charges pending in four states have been considered relevant to show criminal activity. Stark v. State (1986), Ind., 489 N.E.2d 48. Five misdemeanor arrests also have such relevance. MceNew v. State (1979), 271 Ind. 214, 891 N.E.2d 607. In my opinion, arrests are relevant, not to show eriminal activity, but to show that the exercise of police authority over the person had no later deterrent effect upon that person's anti-social inclinations. Chamnmess v. State (1983), Ind., 447 N.E.2d 1086, 1088 (DeBru-ler, J., concurring in result). Arrests and charges concluding in acquittals are totally irrelevant to sentencing considerations. McNew, 271 Ind. at 221, 391 N.E.2d at 612.
A case much like the one before us today is Griffin v. State (1980), 273 Ind. 184, 402 N.E.2d 981. There, two Hooks stores were robbed in Indianapolis two days apart. The later one resulted in a charge and conviction. At sentencing upon that con-viection, the court heard evidence of Griffin's participation in the earlier Hooks robbery, though there had been no charge of that. This Court upheld that procedure, but noted that Griffin had numerous previous felony convictions and that, under all the circumstances, the sentence was not manifestly unreasonable. Here, appellant has several prior convictions, two of which are for felonies. However, unlike the situation in Griffin, the Darlington case and this McCaslin case are separated by seven years. Both bodies were found on Indianapolis airport property, but that is a very large area and, in addition, there was no proof of the cause or time of death in the Darlington case. I find it contrary to notions of fundamental fairness to permit the State at a sentencing hearing to attempt to add years to a sentence by placing any number of uncharged crimes in issue and putting the defendant to his defense on each. I would return to what I consider to be the law prior to Griffin, namely that a police investigation must have resulted in an arrest or charge before proof of a crime not reduced to a conviction can be admitted at a sentencing hearing.