Court Opinion

ID: 9564140
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:54:55.344172+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:14.558094
License: Public Domain

Swinehart, J.,
dissenting. I fail to agree with the majority’s conclusion that the trial court’s imposition of sentence as to plaintiff constitutes an abuse of discretion. The following factors persuade me to dissent from the above result:
*728(1) The trial court’s sentence was within permissible statutory bounds;
(2) Plaintiff was the only person charged who pleaded guilty to the greater offense of aggravated robbery and it does not appear that his plea was other than intelligent, voluntary and knowing;
(3) The trial court could have properly viewed the evaluation from K.R.D.C. as indicating that plaintiff’s involvement in the crime was highly culpable and inexcusable, considering his above average intelligence and extended history of voluntary drug and alcohol abuse;
(4) The severity of the crime committed, especially considering that plaintiff’s guilty plea to aggravated robbery necessarily included an admission of being armed with a dangerous weapon;
(5) While the majority makes much of the fact that the trial court failed to explicitly support its imposition of sentence with appropriate reasoning, the record indicates the trial court asked several questions, at the time of receiving plaintiff’s guilty plea, regarding factors to be considered pursuant to K.S.A. 1979 Supp. 21-4603(3) and the trial court’s appropriate rationale for imposing sentence must be inferred therefrom;
(6) Plaintiff’s situation is readily distinguishable from the cases cited by the majority wherein an abuse of discretion was found;
(7) The question of whether a trial court abused its discretion should be considered from the time of sentencing, not at the time of sentence modification.
Although the trial court’s exercise of discretion in the present case appears to be considerably less than recommendable, I cannot state, as the majority does, that no reasonable person would take the view adopted by the trial court.