Court Opinion

ID: 9740364
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:33:28.477604+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:17.698540
License: Public Domain

Hallows, C. J.
(concurring). The affirmance reached by the majority is, in my opinion, correct; but I cannot accept the reasoning. The majority states the first sentence is invalid because it does not conform to sec. 973.02, Stats. The only reason given for this conclusion is the trial court intended to review the sentence within ninety days. To the majority this mental reservation invalidated the sentence. Suppose the sentencing judge should die before he reconsiders, is the sentence still invalid because of the mental doubt or reservation ? There is nothing in sec. 973.02 which forbids a trial court to reconsider a sentence or to have doubts that this sentence is appropriate. That section deals merely with the place of imprisonment when no such place is expressed in the sentence. See Pruitt v. State (1962), 16 Wis. 2d 169, 114 N. W. 2d 148. In this case the original sentence exceeded one year and named the Wisconsin State Reformatory as a receiving center. This is sufficient to comply with the statute.
The majority charges the trial court with an idea it never had, namely, that the court did not intend the prisoner to remain in prison over one year or even for ninety days; there is no foundation in the record for this assumption. The sentencing judge said on rehearing that while the sentence was stiff' it would not bother his conscience “should I decide to leave it.” This record does not disclose a situation where the trial judge at the time of sentencing intends to change the pronounced sentence of more than one year in prison to probation. Suppose the sentencing judge decided on rehearing that three years should have been the original sentence instead of five years. Would the first sentence have been *584invalid? Here, the trial judge had, at most, a mental doubt that the sentence he pronounced was appropriate. Under such conditions, I consider the first sentence valid and also subject to modification, not that it is invalid and therefore another sentence could be rendered.
But assuming the trial judge sentenced Foellmi to the state prison at Waupun for five years knowing and intending that within ninety days he would sua sponte change or in all likelihood modify the sentence if Foellmi profited by his prison experience, I think such sentencing is within the present power of trial courts and we need no enabling act of the legislature. This practice, which originated in Milwaukee by Circuit Judge Max Raskin and was called by him the “shock treatment,” is generally known to the trial bench. It is based on the concept that sixty to ninety days in a maximum security prison conveys all the psychological benefit by way of deterrence that a prison term is going to extend to the first offender, teaching better than words and advice what punishment by maximum confinement means. The success of the “shock treatment,” of course, rests in part on the lack of knowledge by the convict that the sentence will be modified. If the shock of confinement has no beneficial effect, it may well be the trial judge will leave the original sentence unmodified.
This technique is possible because of the change in view of this court of the inherent power of trial courts over sentencing expressed in Hayes v. State (1970), 46 Wis. 2d 93, 175 N. W. 2d 625. In Hayes we did not restrict the court’s power to correcting an invalid judgment or substituting a new sentence for a void one. Hayes did not deal with the power to correct erroneous judgments but dealt with the power of the court to amend and modify a valid judgment of sentencing after the court term had expired or the service of the sentence had commenced.
*585In changing our position we relied partly on the Approved Draft, 1968, of the American Bar Association Project on Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice, Standards Relating to Sentencing, Alternatives and Procedures, Standard 6.1, which was quoted at length at page 103. I would think by resting the opinion on this Standard we had adopted it, but the majority opinion states the Standard is now adopted but not the Commentary.
In Hayes we cited District Attorney for the Northern District v. Superior Court (1961), 342 Mass. 119, 172 N. E. 2d 245, which the majority now says goes too far in stating that a conscientious judge upon reflection can modify a sentence. The majority would restrict reconsideration of a sentence to cases where new factors bearing on the sentence are made known. The language of Hayes contained no such restriction and the power of the court was not in any way dependent upon after-acquired information. We stated the lack of knowledge of the criminal record of the defendant was what motivated the court to reduce the sentence, but the lack of knowledge did not go to jurisdiction. The central idea of Hayes is that a sentencing judge can within ninety days reconsider his sentencing. There was no requirement that in the exercise of this power it was dependent upon new information, although in most cases, there will be new information. The rule of Hayes was adopted to permit the trial judge to free his conscience of a disturbing doubt that the sentence he had given was not appropriate and this could be accomplished either by motion of the convicted person or by the court sua sponte. It was considered ninety days was sufficient time for a judge to finalize his intention and for a convict to raise the question.
I believe the majority opinion is too restrictive of the power of a judge and is a step backward in the criminal *586process. If a trial judge believes on reconsideration that he has been too harsh in his sentencing or has failed to give due weight to mitigating factors which he should have properly taken into account, he should have the power to re-examine his sentencing and modify it as his conscience dictates. That is consistent with Hayes; State ex rel. Warren v. County Court (1972), 54 Wis. 2d 618, 617, 197 N. W. 2d 1; and State ex rel. Coyas v. Burke (1965), 28 Wis. 2d 188, 136 N. W. 2d 778, authored by this writer for the court and cited by the majority.
What the court now requires is some new factor justifying the modification of the sentence. What the majority now holds is that a trial court can only correct a sentence when new facts appear to make the original sentence incorrect or perhaps inappropriate. Since new facts may be facts in existence at the time of the original sentence but unknown, as was the situation in Hayes and in Mattice v. State (1971), 50 Wis. 2d 380, 184 N. W. 2d 94, and also facts which come into existence after the original sentence, as in the instant case, i.e., a change of attitude on the part of the convict, why should not the trial judge’s re-evaluation of the facts at the time of sentencing be just as valid a ground for the modification of a sentence ?
I respectfully disagree with the concept now advanced by the majority: (1) That a trial judge has no power to validly sentence with a mental reservation or with a possible expectation that he might modify the sentence within ninety days depending upon the effect the imprisonment has on the defendant, and (2) that it is inappropriate for a sentencing court to change an imposed sentence unless new factors are present.