Court Opinion

ID: 9749841
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 13:57:08.673752+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:58.151624
License: Public Domain

Barney, J.
(In dissent). I am moved to disagree with the majority of the Court only upon a most limited issue. I agree that no general function of reviewing legally iipposed sentences has been statutorily assigned to this Court. My disagreement comes from my view that there are several sound justifications for saying that this case merits relief outside of the general concept of sentence review.
To begin with, the statute involved, 13 V.S.A. § 7133, is broadly written to permit the correction of a broad spectrum of improprieties associated with a criminal conviction. Sec*119tion 2.1 (a) (iv) of the American Bar Association Standards Relating to Post-Conviction Remedies, provides:
. . that there has been a significant change in law, whether substantive or procedural, applied in the process leading to applicant’s conviction or sentence, where sufficient reasons exist to allow retroactive application of the changed legal standard.”
As the majority opinion points out, a significant and substantive change in sentencing and correctional policy was made part of our law some two years after sentence was imposed on the respondent in this case. See No. 182 of the Public Acts of 1969 (Adj. Session). Although this amendment to 13 V.S.A. § 7031 did not abolish minimum sentences, it did press for the use of low or no minimums for rehabilitation purposes. Just as the policy concerns of the American Bar Association Standards are not binding on this Court, the amending action of the legislation does not justify a general review of minimum sentences. But I find more to this case than that.
We have a finding by the reviewing court that a reduced minimum is desirable. It is factually supported by a recommendation for reduction from the Board of Parole. Thus, if legally sustainable, the reduction has sound factual support. Added to this is the persuasive justification, as logic, of the quoted A.B.A. Standard and the legislative reform. While not binding in the legal sense, I find in them strong philosophical support for relief as granted below in this case.
As a final consideration, equally strong, I find the nature of the original sentence imposed itself justifies review and modification. A minimum of thirty-five years as applied to a sentence of forty years, it seems to me, brings maximum and minimum so close- together, in the light of the length of the sentence, as to come substantively close to imposing identical maximum and minimum sentences. This has already been held to be improper in In re Parent, 125 Vt. 475, 218 A.2d 717 (1965).

I would affirm the judgment below.