Judge: Supreme Court did ‘good thing’ with sentencing change

LANSING – The changes to the state’s sentencing system could be a “double-edged sword,” according to one local judge.

The change was brought about through a state Supreme Court opinion released Wednesday. It said the state’s sentencing system, which set sentence guidelines a judge could only depart from for substantial or compelling reasons, was unconstitutional.

The remedy was to make those guidelines advisory and give judges more discretion to issue a lower or higher minimum or maximum sentence.

Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said the change was positive because some judges feel constrained by the guidelines that might not apply to a specific defendant. But she added it could also lead to more sentences being appealed if defendants feel the judges aren’t issuing sentences based on reason.

“I think the Supreme Court has done a good thing here,” she said. “I like to make specific judgments on behalf of public safety.”

Clinton County Prosecuting Attorney Chuck Sherman said the ruling might have moved the state away from the fundamental goal of the guidelines, which was that reasonably situated defendants would be sentence similarly. But he added that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“I don’t see it as a major change,” he said. “We're going to continue to calculate the guidelines the way we always have. … The judge is going to have more freedom to impose the sentence they would like, whether it’s inside the guidelines or outside. Some people could see that as a bad thing.”

The change could reduce the number of plea agreements because the sentence can’t be predicted with the same amount of certainty, Aquilina said. She added that the change could also complicate no contest pleas and the role habitual offender statuses play in sentencing because they involve evidence that likely wouldn’t be admitted during a trial.

Sherman said he wasn’t too concerned about what might happen to plea agreements or no contest pleas, but that it remained a possibility.

“It's the old law of unintended consequences,” he said. “We’re all not 100 percent sure. Nobody knows for sure.”

Contact Matt Mencarini at (517) 267-1347 or mmencarini@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattMencarini.