Commonwealth v. McIntyre
| Decision Date | 05 March 2002 |
| Citation | 767 NE 2d 578,436 Mass. 829 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. SCOTT K. McINTYRE. |
Present: MARSHALL, C.J., GREANEY, IRELAND, SPINA, COWIN, SOSMAN, & CORDY, JJ.
Peter M. Onek, Committee for Public Counsel Services, for the defendant.
Varsha Kukafka, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
This case raises a question of first impression: Whether an award of restitution that takes account of property damage as part of a criminal conviction of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, in the absence of a conviction of a crime based on property damage, exceeds the proper scope of a restitution order. We answer the question in the negative and uphold the judge's determination of the amount of restitution.
Facts. After finishing his shift at the Brockton post office at 2:30 A.M. on April 8, 1998, the victim decided to collect discarded cans. Following his "special route," the victim went to an apartment complex in Stoughton, even though the head of the maintenance staff had told him that she would telephone the police if she saw him there again.
The victim was at a dumpster sorting through the trash, when he felt a sharp pain in his lower back. At the same time, someone said, "take that, [now] get out of my fucking area." The victim turned around to see the defendant swinging a knife at him. The victim shielded himself with his bag of cans and the defendant fled.
The victim felt intense pain in his back and got into his car and began driving. Unaware of the extent of his injury, he stopped at the next dumpster, about 600 to 700 feet away. The defendant returned, this time with his dog. The defendant ordered his dog to attack the victim, and the dog grabbed the victim's pant leg. The victim again tried to protect himself with the bag of cans, but the defendant grabbed the bag away. Fearing that the defendant would stab him again, the victim fled to his car. Just as the victim got in, the defendant kicked the door and the fender.
The victim began to feel the blood flowing from his wound, and he drove into the street and honked his horn. A Stoughton police officer stopped to help. After the victim told the officer that he had been stabbed and showed his wound, the officer told the victim to drive to a hospital and that he would follow. The victim was treated at the hospital for his wound, a two-inch wide puncture in his upper buttocks that had penetrated his shirt and pants.
At 4 A.M., Sergeant Thomas Murphy of the Stoughton police department went to the hospital and observed the victim's wound. At 7:30 A.M., he went to the defendant's home and, after administering Miranda warnings, spoke with the defendant. The defendant said that he had seen the victim trespassing on his property and followed him to the dumpsters. He said that they had an "altercation" and that he had kicked the victim in the back. He denied stabbing the victim. Sergeant Murphy arrested the defendant.
The defendant was charged with assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, G. L. c. 265, § 15A, and armed robbery, G. L. c. 265, § 17A, subsequently reduced to larceny from a person.1 The defendant was tried before a judge and a jury of six in the District Court, and the jury found him guilty of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon. The judge sentenced the defendant to two and one-half years of probation, with several conditions: completion of an anger management program within thirty days; compliance with a court clinic mental health evaluation and medication as prescribed; procurement and maintenance of employment; compliance with a "stay away" order; and payment of restitution to the victim in an agreed amount or an amount determined at a restitution hearing.
The parties were not able to agree on restitution, and proceeded to a hearing. The judge heard testimony on the victim's losses relating to medical care, clothing, lost wages, and car repair. The judge allowed restitution for damage to the victim's car, but denied any with respect to the collected cans, the subject of the larceny charge on which he granted the defendant's motion for a required finding of not guilty. The victim asserted that the defendant kicked both the car door and fender as the victim got in, and the victim provided receipts indicating the cost of repair. The judge ordered the defendant to pay $168 in restitution for car repair. The defendant objected on the basis that there had been no charge of malicious destruction of property. The judge awarded the restitution over the defendant's objection, and the defendant appealed, alleging that the judge's award of restitution for damage to the victim's car went beyond the scope of a restitution order under the statutory language of G. L. c. 276, § 92. We granted his application for direct appellate review.
Discussion. The defendant's claims present the following question. What is the proper scope of restitution imposed as a condition of probation on a defendant convicted of a crime? The defendant asserts that the scope of restitution within the judge's power to order was constrained by the language of G. L. c. 276, § 92, that he "make restitution or reparation to the person injured by him in the commission of his offence" (emphasis added). The defendant further asserts that similar language appears in other statutes concerning restitution. See G. L. c. 276, § 92A (); G. L. c. 258B, § 3 (a) (); G. L. c. 279, § 4B (). The defendant maintains that, because the damage to the victim's car was not a direct result of the defendant stabbing the victim, the restitution awarded was beyond the scope of the statutes. He asserts further that a proper reading of the statutes requires that he only may be made to pay restitution for injuries flowing from the elements of the underlying crime of which he was convicted. We disagree with the defendant's interpretation.
None of the statutes the defendant cites in support of his argument is the source of the judge's power to order restitution in the instant case. General Laws c. 276, § 92, provides the court with the power to require that a defendant make restitution payments directly to a probation officer if the entire amount is not paid at once. It does not create a power to order restitution. General Laws c. 276, § 92A, requires restitution in addition to other punishments for the conviction of certain enumerated offenses, none of which is implicated in this case. The victim and witness rights provided under G. L. c. 258B, § 3, allow a victim to request restitution in the disposition of a criminal case, but do not provide the court with authority to make such an order. Finally, G. L. c. 279, § 4B, merely requires documentation of the financial loss suffered by a victim of crime to be part of the victim impact statement prepared by the office of the district attorney. The power of a judge to order restitution in a case such as the one before us is neither derived from nor constrained by the statutes on which the defendant relies.
The judge's power to order restitution in a criminal case, such as this, derives from the judge's power to order conditions of probation under G. L. c. 276, §§ 87, 87A, and G. L. c. 279, § 1. See Harland, Monetary Remedies for the Victims of Crime: Assessing the Role of the Criminal Courts, 30 U.C.L.A. L. Rev. 52, 57-58 (1982) (). We have held that "judges are permitted great latitude in sentencing as long as the sentence imposed is within the limits provided by the statute under which the defendant is convicted." Commonwealth v. Power, 420 Mass. 410, 413-414 (1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1042 (1996), and cases cited. See Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 481-483 (2000); Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957, 998-999 (1991) (plurality opinion). It has been Commonwealth v. Power, supra at 414. General goals of sentencing include punishment, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation.2 Id. "There is no question that restitution is an appropriate consideration in a criminal sentencing." Commonwealth v. Nawn, 394 Mass. 1, 6 (1985), citing Novelty Bias Binding Co. v. Shevrin, 342 Mass. 714, 717 (1961).
Like any other criminal sanction, restitution best serves penal objectives when it bears a proper relationship to the crime of conviction, both in kind and proportion. See Nygaard, On the Philosophy of Sentencing: Or, Why Punish?, 5 Widener J. Pub. L. 237, 265-266 (1996) (). "If a sentence is not functional, ... no one knows it better than the sentenced offender." Id. The public and the offender must know that justice has been done. Id. at 266. We must seek to penalize offenders in such a way that they understand the reasonableness of the punishment, "free of any legitimate hatred for the system that punished [them], and without the unnecessary venom we generate by excessive [punishment]." Id. There must be a connection between the injury and the crime of conviction for restitution to serve as a...
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