Court Opinion

ID: 9729749
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:48:05.101689+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:00.972795
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
dissenting.
In Heathe v. State, (1971) 257 Ind. 345, 274 N.E.2d 697, this Court held that the ruling in Hobbs v. State, (1969) 253 Ind. 195, 252 N.E.2d 498, and Dembowski v. State, (1968) 251 Ind. 250, 240 N.E.2d 815, that a sentence for a lesser offense that exceeds the sentence provided for the greater offense constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the 8th Amendment to the United States Constitution and disproportionate punishment in violation of Article 1, Section 16 of the Indiana Constitution, is not limited to the situation where the greater offense is charged or where there has been an actual trial. That constitutional ruling applies where the greater offense is not charged and where the conviction for the lesser is the product of a plea bargain. In 1972, the First District Court of Appeals in Goodwin v. State, (1972) 153 Ind.App. 203, 286 N.E.2d 703, considered our holding in Heathe and applied it to a situation like the one before us, and correctly concluded that the sentence imposed of one to ten years had to be reduced to one to five years.
The “important distinctions” between the Heathe case and the one before us which have been uncovered and recited in the majority opinion, including the fact that the prosecution gave up the opportunity to seek a conviction for the greater offense when it agreed to the plea bargain — and the fact that the prosecutor made the statement at sentencing that the state had a good case against appellant on the first-degree burglary charge, are wholly without constitutional significance. They do not alter the fact that appellant was convicted of the offense of entering to commit a felony, and *279it is the conviction of that offense which invokes the penalty provisions of the statute defining the offense, and it is the constitution which stays the court’s hand from imposing a sentence consistent with those legislatively set penalty provisions. Accordingly, I would remand to correct this sentence to provide a sentence of not more than five years.
PRENTICE, J., concurs.