Court Opinion

ID: 9672282
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:52:06.835574+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:15.230292
License: Public Domain

*486Otis, Justice
(dissenting).
Minn. St. 609.15 provides as follows:
“When separate sentences of imprisonment are imposed on a defendant for two or more crimes, whether charged in a single indictment or information or separately, or when a person who is under sentence of imprisonment in this state is being sentenced to imprisonment for another crime committed prior to or while subject to such former sentence, the court in the later sentences shall specify whether the sentences shall run concurrently or consecutively. If the court does not so specify, the sentences shall run concurrently.”
It is significant that the statute endorses unitary and simultaneous incarceration for all offenses committed prior to the conviction for which sentence is being imposed. This is the position adopted by the American Bar Association in its Standards Relating to Sentencing Alternatives and Procedures (Approved Draft, 1968). Section 3.5 provides in part:
“The failure to integrate prison sentences for crimes committed in different states seriously inhibits a consistent, coherent treatment program during confinement. * * * It is therefore highly desirable that multiple sentences of imprisonment imposed by different states be served at one time and under one correctional authority.”
Although the majority is not .persuaded by Ex Parte Lawson, 98 Tex. Cr. 554, 266 S. W. 1101 (1924), that case squarely held that where a defendant is under sentence in a Federal court, a subsequent sentence in a state court runs concurrently with the Federal sentence. A similar rule was adopted in Michigan in In re Carey’s Petition, 372 Mich. 378, 126 N. W. 2d 727 (1964). There, the court held that where a defendant has been sentenced in Federal court and is subsequently sentenced in a state court, the state sentence may not, in the absence of statutory authority, commence at the completion or expiration of Federal sentence.
*487In my opinion, where the trial court can foresee that a Federal penalty will be imposed but refuses to specify whether the sentence shall be concurrent or consecutive, it should be presumed as a matter of law that the terms of the sentences are to run concurrently. Such a rule of law is consistent with the common law of this state, the legislative philosophy made evident by § 609.15, .and the approach of the A. B. A. Standards. It provides for multiple offenders the benefit of a unified treatment plan which by .definition seeks rehabilitation in preparation for their ultimate .return to the community.
Adopting a presumption that sentences shall be concurrent -does not prevent the first judge from stating that the sentence shall be served consecutively with any sentence thereafter imposed. Nor does such a rule of law offend considerations of ■comity by preventing the Federal court from independently •determining whether or not the Federal sentence is to run consecutively with the state sentence. The Federal court may pre- . serve its prerogative by directing that the state sentence first be served before the Federal sentence begins to run.
The procedure suggested prevents the kind of irrational fortuity which denies a defendant a decision on whether his sentence is to run consecutively or concurrently merely because the state sentence is imposed first. Had the order been reversed, with the state sentence coming after the Federal sentence, it seems • entirely clear that the statute would govern, and that in the .absence of contrary direction, the sentence would run concurrently. Disparate sentencing should not depend merely on an accident of timing. I would reverse.