Court Opinion

ID: 9693552
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:49:35.404871+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:48.387582
License: Public Domain

T. M. Burns, J.
(concurring). For the reasons stated in Judge Kaufman’s concurrence I am also compelled to reach the conclusion that defendant’s two prior convictions for attempted larceny in a building, MCL 750.360, 750.503, 750.92; MSA 28.592, 28.771, 28.287, fall within the habitual offender statute, MCL 769.12; MSA 28.1084, and may be used to augment punishment in this case. I write separately to question the wisdom of using the statute in this way.
The prior convictions for attempted larceny in a building occurred in 1963 and 1970. The disposition on those charges is not stated, but they carried a maximum of two years in prison. The current charge of breaking and entering a motor vehicle with intent to steal property valued in excess of $5 carried a maximum of five years and the court originally imposed a sentence of only one year, eight months to five years.
The trial court must have been aware of defendant’s prior record at the time the original sentence was imposed. However, relying on the two attempt convictions in dispute and two convictions which are even older, the sentence was increased to 10 to 20 years under the habitual offender *597provisions. It seems both the court’s time and the prosecution’s could have been put to better use than pursuing the habitual information in this case without a significant decrease in the protection afforded the public.