State v. Heath , 329 Mont. 226 ( 2005 )

No. 04-630
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MONTANA
2005 MT 280STATE OF MONTANA,
Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
BARRY ALONZO HEATH,
Defendant and Appellant.
APPEAL FROM: District Court of the Eighth Judicial District,
In and for the County of Cascade, Cause No. ADC-01-068,
The Honorable Thomas M. McKittrick, Judge presiding.
COUNSEL OF RECORD:
For Appellant:
Chad Wright, Appellate Defender, Helena, Montana
For Respondent:
Hon. Mike McGrath, Attorney General; John Paulson,
Assistant Attorney General, Helena, Montana
Brant Light, Cascade County Attorney; John Parker, Deputy County
Attorney, Great Falls, Montana
Submitted on Briefs: July 26, 2005
Decided: November 8, 2005
Filed:
__________________________________________
Clerk
Justice John Warner delivered the Opinion of the Court.
¶1 Barry Alonzo Heath (Heath) appeals from the District Court’s order sentencing Heath
to 25 years with 15 years suspended to the Montana State Prison (MSP) following our
remand for resentencing in State v. Heath, 2004 MT 58, 320 Mont. 211, 89 P.3d 947 (Heath
I). We affirm.
¶2 The restated issue on appeal is whether the District Court violated Heath’s due
process rights when it changed his sentence from a Department of Corrections (DOC)
commitment to term at the MSP following his successful appeal in Heath I.
BACKGROUND
¶3 Following a jury trial, the Eighth Judicial District, the Honorable Judge Thomas M.
McKittrick presiding, sentenced Heath to 25 years with 5 years suspended to the DOC for
sexual intercourse without consent. The District Court also imposed a consecutive 5-year
with 3 years suspended sentence for a related tampering with a witness conviction. Heath
appealed the sexual intercourse without consent sentence. We reversed Heath’s sentence
because it violated § 46-18-201(3)(c)-(d), MCA, which requires the district court to suspend
“all but the first 5 years of the commitment to the department of corrections.” Heath argued
then that to remedy the statutory violation we should strike the illegal portion of the
sentence, so his DOC commitment would be 25 years, with 20 years suspended. We
disagreed, and instead remanded for resentencing. Heath I, ¶¶ 48, 53.
¶4 At resentencing, Judge McKittrick imposed a 25-year sentence with 15 years
suspended to the MSP for the sexual intercourse without consent conviction. The judge left
the term of 5 years with 3 years suspended for the tampering with a witness sentence
2
unchanged, but ordered it to run concurrently with the rape conviction. Heath now appeals
the District Court’s remanded sentence.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
¶5 This Court reviews a criminal sentence for legality only. State v. Montoya, 1999 MT
180, ¶ 15, 295 Mont. 288, ¶ 15, 983 P.2d 937, ¶ 15. We review whether the District Court
violated a defendant’s constitutional right to due process at sentencing de novo. State v.
Redfern, 2004 MT 277, ¶ 8, 323 Mont. 225, ¶ 8, 99 P.3d 223, ¶ 8.
DISCUSSION
¶6 Heath contends that his present sentence is illegal because this Court should have
stricken the illegal portion of his initial sentence in Heath I. He alleges further that the
District Court violated his due process rights when it imposed a more severe sentence on
remand because it did not comply with the requirements of North Carolina v. Pearce (1969),
395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 overruled in part and on other grounds,
Alabama v. Smith (1989), 490 U.S. 794, 109 S.Ct. 2201, 104 L.Ed.2d 865. We disagree.
¶7 Heath first asserts that this Court erred when it failed to strike the illegal portion of
his initial sentence, but instead chose to remand for resentencing. In Heath I, this Court had
the opportunity to strike the illegal portion of the initial sentence but declined to do so.
Relying on our prior decisions, we remanded for resentencing because the challenged
sentence “affect[ed] the entire sentence” and we were unable to discern what the District
Court would have done if it had properly applied the law. Heath I, ¶¶ 51, 53. Heath now
espouses the identical argument and essentially asks us to revisit our decision in Heath I.
We were unpersuaded by Heath’s argument then, and res judicata prevents us from
3
considering an issue that we have resolved previously. State v. Black (1990), 245 Mont. 39,
44, 798 P.2d 530, 533.
¶8 Heath also claims that the District Court violated his due process rights when it
changed his custody placement from the DOC to the MSP, because the new sentence is more
severe. He contends a harsher sentence following an appeal mandates the district court
comply with the requirements of Pearce, and asserts that the District Court failed to do so
in the present case.
¶9 Pearce requires that the reasons the court imposed “a more severe sentence” upon a
defendant after a new trial1 appear in the record and be based on “objective information
concerning identifiable conduct on the part of the defendant occurring after the time of the
original sentencing proceeding.” Pearce, 395 U.S. at 726, 89 S.Ct. at 2081, 23 L.Ed.2d at
670. The threshold question then, is whether the District Court imposed a more severe
sentence following remand.
¶10 Heath claims that the District Court’s sentence on remand was more onerous than his
initial sentence because the court ordered Heath to serve at the MSP instead of at the DOC
as initially sentenced. On remand, Judge McKittrick ordered 25 years with 15 years
suspended at the MSP instead of 25 years with 5 years suspended at the DOC. Relying on
our recent decision in State v. Tracy, Heath contends a commitment to the MSP is stricter
than a DOC commitment. See State v. Tracy, 2005 MT 128, ¶ 20, 327 Mont. 220, ¶ 20, 113
P.3d 297, ¶ 20 (referring to a sentence to the MSP as “impos[ing] an additional, more
1
Although the present situation does not involve a new sentence following retrial as
in Pearce, this Court recently adopted the same analysis when examining resentencing on
remand. See Redfern, ¶¶ 12-14.
4
burdensome, condition” than a sentence for the same term to the DOC). Heath states:
[b]eyond the obvious difference between a twenty-five year sentence with
twenty years suspended and a twenty-five year sentence with fifteen years
suspended, the lack of flexibility in the court’s imposition of a prison term is
what makes the change from the DOC commitment more punitive.
¶11 While we agree that a DOC commitment is more flexible than an MSP commitment,
Heath’s allegations of punitive sentencing omit the fact that on remand the District Court
ordered Heath’s sentence for sexual intercourse without consent to run concurrently with the
tampering with a witness charge. In fact, Heath’s entire brief does not mention this
significant change to his sentence that resulted in reducing his overall sentence by 12 years.
Thus, despite the more flexible nature of a DOC commitment, Heath cannot seriously argue
he received a harsher sentence on remand. We conclude that the sentence the District Court
imposed on remand is not more severe than Heath’s initial sentence. Consequently, the
Pearce requirements do not apply. The sentence is affirmed.
/S/ JOHN WARNER
We Concur:
/S/ W. WILLIAM LEAPHART
/S/ JAMES C. NELSON
/S/ JIM RICE
/S/ BRIAN MORRIS
5