Court Opinion

ID: 9687104
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:16:10.69758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:24.278190
License: Public Domain

TOMUANOVICH, Justice
(dissenting).
Because I would affirm the court of appeals, I respectfully dissent.
The trial court examined the facts and acted within its discretion in sentencing defendant to 20 years consecutive to the Washington County sentence.
The defendant had 24 felony convictions prior to the sentencing on the four felony and one misdemeanor offenses in the Pine County case. As the trial court observed, “this is not the ordinary ease.” Trial Court Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, Order and Memorandum of November 20, 1991, p. 3 (emphasis in original).
*53The trial court found that the defendant was without remorse and consistently stated that the victims were the wrong doers, not him. The trial court also noted that Mr. Raehuy interrupted his observations on Rachuy’s criminal record “and stated unequivocally that he intended to ‘do it again.’ ” Id. at 2.
In 1989 the Minnesota Legislature adopted Minn.Stat. § 609.152, subd. 3, the Career Offender Statute. The statute provides that the sentencing court may depart from the sentencing guidelines’ presumptive sentence, up to the statutory maximum where the offender is a career offender. The statute defines a career offender as one who has more than four prior felony convictions and the present felony was committed as part of a pattern of criminal conduct from which a substantial portion of the offenders’ income was derived. On appeal Mr. Raehuy did not challenge the finding that he was a “career offender.”
The cases relied upon by the majority to reduce the sentence were decided prior to the enactment of Minn.Stat. § 609.152, subd. 3. The statute clearly was intended as an exception to the sentencing guidelines.
The trial court best summed up the reasons for the departure in its sentencing memorandum:
When one observes this defendant’s aggravated criminal history, together with observing his amusement at the frustration of his victims, together with his defiant attitude at sentencing (illustrated best by his remarkable promise to re-offend), it is clear that a failure to depart from a presumptive sentence of 44 months in favor of an aggravated durational departure to the statutory maximum of ten years and consecutive to each other in at least Counts II and III would be to completely abandon public safety as one of the goals of sentencing.
Id. at 3.
I would affirm the court of appeals and the trial court.