Court Opinion

ID: 9858742
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:35:46.674693+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:55:41.737893
License: Public Domain

Wendell Griffen, Judge, concurring. I concur in the result in this case. I believe the trial court erred in admitting the evidence that appellant was free on bond when he committed the crimes in the instant case. Nonetheless, I agree we should affirm appellant’s sentence because the error is harmless, in that appellant cannot show that he was prejudiced by the erroneous admission of the evidence. The fact that appellant was free on bond in an unrelated case when he committed the offenses in this case was not relevant to prove any matter related to his sentencing for the instant charges of residential burglary and misdemeanor theft of property. To begin, it cannot be said that the fact that he was free on bond that was granted for unrelated, unproven conduct was an aggravation relevant to his sentencing. An aggravation is any circumstance attending the commission of a crime that increases its guilt or enormity or adds to its injurious consequences, but that is above and beyond the essential constituents of the crime itself. Davis v. State, 60 Ark. App. 179, 962 S.W.2d 815 (1998) (affirming the admission of evidence during the sentencing phase that the defendant, who had been convicted of delivery of a controlled substance, had made prior drug sales, even though he was not prosecuted for that conduct); see also Hill v. State, 318 Ark. 408, 887 S.W.2d 275 (1994) (affirming the admission of evidence during the sentencing phase that the defendant, who had pled guilty to robbery, had attempted to rob the same victim on a prior occasion) . Unlike the related conduct in Davis v. State, supra, and Hill v. State, supra, the other conduct in which appellant had allegedly engaged was not related in any way to the convictions for which he was being sentenced. Thus, I do not see how it can be said here that the allegations that appellant had committed forgery constituted an aggravation. Since the forgery allegations were unrelated to the instant charges, they could not increase the guilt or enormity of appellant’s convictions for residential burglary and misdemeanor theft of property or add to their injurious consequences. Nor was that fact indicative of appellant’s character or otherwise relevant. The mere fact that someone has been charged with a crime should not blithely be accepted as relevant evidence of his character for sentencing purposes. Even though appellant had been charged with additional crimes, he is presumed to be not guilty of committing those crimes until proven guilty in a court of law. He had not yet been tried for the unrelated forgery charges and thus, still retained the presumption of innocence for those charges at the time he was tried for the instant offenses. Nonetheless, I agree we should affirm appellant’s sentence; he has not demonstrated prejudice from the sentence because his twenty-five-year sentence for the felony was below the maximum sentence allowable and was within the statutory range, and his sentence for the misdemeanor offense was merged with his felony. See Buckley v. State, 349 Ark. 53, 76 S.W.3d 825 (2002); Ark. Code. Ann. § 5-39-201 (a)(1) (Repl. 1997) (defining residential burglary as a Class B felony); § 5-4-501 (a)(2)(C) (Supp. 2003) (providing an enhanced sentence of five to thirty years in prison for a Class B felony); Ark. Code Ann. § 5-4-403(c)(2) (Supp. 2003) (requiring that a sentence for a misdemeanor and a felony run concurrently). Therefore, appellant cannot demonstrate that he was prejudiced by the inadmissible evidence.