Order Michigan Supreme Court
Lansing, Michigan
December 8, 2006 Clifford W. Taylor,
Chief Justice
131634 Michael F. Cavanagh
Elizabeth A. Weaver
Marilyn Kelly
Maura D. Corrigan
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, Robert P. Young, Jr.
Plaintiff-Appellee, Stephen J. Markman,
Justices
v SC: 131634
COA: 270285
Saginaw CC: 02-021263-FH
CHARLES LEE BELL,
Defendant-Appellant.
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On order of the Court, the application for leave to appeal the June 29, 2006 order
of the Court of Appeals is considered, and it is DENIED, because we are not persuaded
that the question presented should be reviewed by this Court.
CAVANAGH and KELLY, JJ., would remand this case to the Court of Appeals for
consideration as on leave granted.
MARKMAN, J., dissents and states as follows:
The dominant purpose of the legislative sentencing guidelines is to promote
uniformity of criminal sentencing and to lessen the effect of the predispositions and
preferences of individual sentencing judges. The guidelines establish relatively narrow
ranges of sentences, based upon a variety of offense and offender characteristics, and
require that judges sentence within those ranges. Only if a judge articulates “substantial
and compelling” factors for departing above or below the guidelines range may he or she
do so.
However, the articulation of “substantial and compelling” factors does not afford
the sentencing judge carte blanche to depart above or below the guidelines at his or her
discretion, for this would be to ignore the “sentencing uniformity” purpose of the
guidelines with regard to extra-guidelines sentences. As this Court has stated,
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[W]e do not believe that the Legislature [in MCL 769.34(3)]
intended, in every case in which a minimal upward or downward departure
is justified by “substantial and compelling” circumstances, to allow
unreviewable discretion to depart as far below or as far above the
guideline range as the sentencing court chooses. Rather, the “substantial
and compelling” circumstances articulated by the court must justify the
particular departure in a case, i.e., “that departure.” [People v Hegwood,
465 Mich 432, 437 n 10 (2001) (emphasis in original).]
That is, what may constitute “substantial and compelling” circumstances in
support of a five-month departure from the guidelines range may not constitute
“substantial and compelling” circumstances in support of a 30-month departure. From
the requirement that a sentencing departure must be assessed by reference to the
particular departure in a case, i.e., “that departure,” I believe it follows that there is an
obligation upon the sentencing judge as he or she departs increasingly far from the
guidelines range to be more increasingly specific in his or her articulation of “substantial
and compelling” circumstances and to explain increasingly clearly why a lesser departure
would be inadequate.
In the instant case, defendant's guidelines range was 2 to 34 months and he was
sentenced to a term of 90 to 180 months. Thus, he was sentenced to a minimum term of
imprisonment that was 265 percent of the minimum guidelines range. Although this
departure may well be justified in light of defendant's criminal history and probation
violations, I believe that a fuller articulation than was given here is required by the
sentencing court in support of a departure of this magnitude, and I would remand for such
a rearticulation.
Merely reciting a list of allegedly “substantial and compelling” factors, as the
sentencing court did here, is not sufficient, in my judgment, to support a departure of this
magnitude absent some explanation regarding why such factors -- some of which have
already been taken into consideration by the guidelines -- require a nearly five-year
increase in imprisonment beyond what the Legislature has established. That is, there
must be at least some rudimentary effort by the sentencing court to show a connection
between the “substantial and compelling” factors and the actual sentence imposed.
The legislative sentencing guidelines, in my judgment, represent an important step
toward sentencing fairness. They are designed to ensure that equally situated criminals
receive reasonably equivalent sentences. The guidelines have considerably strengthened
the rule of law in the criminal sentencing process in the place of the rule of individual
judges. The serendipity of whether a perpetrator draws a relatively severe or a relatively
lenient sentencing judge is now of considerably less consequence. However, the
guidelines can only succeed if the trial and appellate courts of this state take seriously
their obligation to ensure that departures from the guidelines range are not viewed as
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departures from the “sentencing uniformity” objective of the guidelines, and that
departure sentences serve to promote, rather than to detract from, this objective.
I, Corbin R. Davis, Clerk of the Michigan Supreme Court, certify that the
foregoing is a true and complete copy of the order entered at the direction of the Court.
December 8, 2006 _________________________________________
l1205 Clerk