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EVIDENCE-BASED SENTENCTING >> Habitual Sentencing
Campaign Brief:
Rethinking Habitual Sentencing
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Background
Habitual sentencing is an enhancement a prosecutor can request a judge apply that can extend a statutory minimum sentence by 25, 50 or 100 percent, depending on how many previous convictions a person has. The reasoning behind this policy seems obvious: if someone has shown that they are likely to commit crime repeatedly, then longer sentences could deter them, or at very least, justify a longer term of incarceration.
However, exactly how the state has considered someone “habitual” has changed over time.
Prior to 2008, to count towards someone being considered “habitual,” convictions were treated “transactionally” – that is, multiple convictions arising out of a single event counted as one conviction for purposes of habitual enhancements. However, in 2008, the Michigan Supreme Court overruled these decisions in People v. Gardner, stating that, “The unambiguous statutory language of the habitual offender statute directs courts to count each separate felony conviction that preceded the sentencing offense, not the number of criminal incidents resulting in felony convictions.” This means that a person who previously had no criminal convictions at all could become eligible for third-offense “habitual sentencing” after one incident that led to convictions on three separate charges. In other words, you could become considered “habitual” after just one event.
The second problem comes with how far back the court is allowed to look at previous sentences when considering habitual sentencing. Michigan Rules of Evidence — the guidelines that stipulate how the courts in Michigan operate — state that “where a prior conviction is more than 10 years old, the conviction should be rarely admitted and only if the court finds that the probative value substantially outweighs the prejudicial effect.” Sentencing guidelines similarly contain a 10-year lookback period. In other words, judges and prosecutors should ignore convictions that are more than 10 years old unless the meaning and impact of a particular conviction is greater than its ability to turn a jury or judge against a defendant. However, the habitual sentencing statute has been interpreted to authorize enhancement based on any conviction, no matter how old.
These two problems make habitual sentencing unfair and needlessly lengthen sentences in Michigan — a state that is already trying to contend with some of the longest prison sentences in the country.
Vision
Keeping communities safe is everyone’s goal. If someone shows that they are likely to commit crime repeatedly, the courts may want to recognize that by applying a habitual sentencing enhancement that can lengthen a statutory sentence by up to 100 percent. However, unless the law is carefully applied, it can complicate prison overcrowding by unfairly label people as “habitual” after one event and looking further back into peoples’ past than most other court rules allow.
We can fix this by updating the habitual sentencing law to address two problems. By making clear that convictions arising from the same event cannot be counted more than once when determining habitual status, and by limiting the look-back period to 10 years, Michigan’s habitual sentencing law will be brought in line with existing Michigan laws.
Solution
Safe & Just Michigan proposes two updates to the habitual sentencing law:
- Michigan law must restore transactional counting of prior convictions, making it clear that multiple convictions arising from a single event should only be counted once when determining habitual sentencing status, rather than counting each conviction from the same event individually. This is important, because the number of previous convictions a person has can determine how much their sentence will be extended under habitual sentencing.
- The habitual sentencing law should mirror the 10-year lookback in similar provisions of the criminal law, such as the Michigan Rules of Evidence and sentencing guidelines, which limit judges from looking back more than 10 years when considering a person’s earlier criminal record “unless the meaning and impact of a particular conviction is greater than its ability to turn a jury or judge against a defendant.”
These two reforms will go a long way toward making the habitual sentencing law more reasonable and bring it in line with existing court practices and address prison overcrowding.
