Court Opinion

ID: 9734512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:36:53.596085+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:48.947474
License: Public Domain

COYNE, Justice
(dissenting).
Although I concur in the majority determination in parts one and two of the opinion that the trial court did not err prejudi-cially in admitting Spreigl evidence and police identification photographs, I respectfully dissent to the determination that the trial court properly computed his [defendant’s] criminal history score.
In computing the defendant’s criminal history score the trial court had before it the police report of the Illinois robbery which was interrupted by the arrival of the police. According to the report one of the robbers yelled “The cops are here, we’re busted,” then both went into an adjoining back office. One repeated the statement that they were “busted,” and the other stated, “Don’t worry, we’ll get him as he’s coming in the door.”
The state, which has the burden of proving the facts which justify consideration of out-of-state convictions and establish the divisibility of a defendant’s course of conduct for purposes of determining a defendant’s criminal history score, contends that the dialogue between the two robbers implies a decision to “get” the police whether or not that was necessary to avoid capture. It seems to me, however, that either of two equally probable inferences may be drawn from their statements and the succeeding events: That the defendant was, as the *110state contends, independently motivated by a desire to inflict injury on the police, or that shooting at the police was, as the defendant contends, simply the method by which the robbers hoped to effect their escape. Inasmuch as neither inference preponderates over the other, I conclude that the state has failed to demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence the divisibility of the course of conduct — particularly in view of the absence of any evidence of the identity of the person who proposed that they could “get” the police.
If the Illinois convictions were treated as a single course of conduct, the maximum number of points attributable to them would have been two rather than four, and the defendant’s criminal history score would have been five. The presumptive sentence for a single robbery, by a person who has a criminal history score of five, is 46 months.
I would reduce the sentence to 46 months.