Court Opinion

ID: 9655482
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:12:01.284707+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:18.970293
License: Public Domain

BABLITCH, J.
(concurring). I agree with Judge Gartzke’s analysis. I write separately because I think it needs to be stated that under present law, this court is powerless to remedy a sentence which shocks its conscience unless the trial court seriously falters in employing the familiar checklist of discretionary factors *439relevant to its decision. So long as the trial court discusses each such factor, this court is a rubber stamp for any sentence which may he imposed. This is so despite any sense of injustice, however deep and lingering, which may form during a review of the record.
The defendant in this case, a recent immigrant from Cuba, has no prior criminal record. He did not set forth to seek sexual adventure on the night in question. He said he believed the girls (or “women,” as he called them) were “available” when they came to the apartment about midnight, looking for a dollar and some marijuana, and stayed to talk and smoke marijuana with a group of men they did not know, whose language they did not share. Perhaps, in his culture, such conduct at such an hour would be widely interpreted as an invitation to sexual games by willing players familiar with the possible consequences. Perhaps he proceeded on that assumption, however loathsome such an assumption is rightly regarded as being in this culture, in this day.
I do not suggest that cultural factors or a “macho” world-view excuse these crimes. They do not. But eighty years of a person’s life is a high price to exact for acts which may have been set in motion by mis judgment about the mores of a new culture, and misreading the signals of its women. That those signals may be sometimes both confusing and confused is in this case exemplified by the fact that S.P. stayed to eat a plate of ham and crackers with the men after the assaults were over, kissed one of her attackers goodbye, and promised to return later to take the men to a party. She then admittedly, repeatedly lied to the police by claiming she had been abducted at knifepoint by five men in a car, and taken to the apartment by force. She did not correct that story until five days after the arrests, when she said she had fabricated it to avoid her father’s anger and to protect her girlfriend, who was a runaway minor.
*440S.P.’s conduct, including- her minimal resistance to the assaults, is understandable if she was in fear for her life, as she testified. The defendant’s lack of remorse may begin to be understandable if he believed that S.P.’s conduct was an accurate reflection of her attitude, and that she had falsely accused him of violent abduction. This consideration does not justify or excuse his acts. It is relevant, however, to passing sentence upon them.
The defendant must be punished for his part in forcing, degrading and traumatizing S.P. The punishment should be sufficient to deter him, and others, from committing such acts in the future. But the punishment should be a just one, and proportionate to its circumstances.
The presentence investigation report recommended twenty to twenty-five years. The trial court imposed a sentence more than three times greater. What is a “just” and “proportionate” sentence under the circumstances of this case? What is this court’s proper role in considering that question ? The ABA standard, or other standards articulated by the supreme court, would provide this court with needed guidance in circumstances such as these.