State v. Link, 69573
| Citation | 341 N.W.2d 738 |
| Decision Date | 21 December 1983 |
| Docket Number | No. 69573,69573 |
| Parties | STATE of Iowa, Appellant, v. Victor LINK, Appellee. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Iowa |
Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen., and Marcia Mason, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellant.
Linda Del Gallo, Asst. Appellate Defender, for appellee.
Considered by McGIVERIN, P.J., and LARSON, SCHULTZ, CARTER, and WOLLE, JJ.
Following revocation of his probation, defendant was sentenced to serve 120 days in the county jail. The State contends that the court had no authority to impose this sentence. Because the underlying offense of second-degree burglary (Iowa Code § 713.3 (1981)) is a Class-C felony, a jail term is not one of the sentencing alternatives available to the court, the State argues. The defendant argues that Iowa Code section 908.11, authorizing a court upon revocation of probation to "require the defendant to serve the sentence imposed or any lesser sentence," in effect expands the sentencing options otherwise available to the court and, in this case, authorized the jail sentence. We conclude that section 908.11 does not expand sentencing options in probation revocation cases beyond those prescribed for an original sentencing and accordingly vacate the sentence and remand.
Victor Link was convicted of two counts of second-degree burglary in March, 1982, and was sentenced to two indeterminate sentences not exceeding ten years each, to run concurrently. The sentences were suspended, however, and he was placed on probation with placement in the residential correctional facility at Fort Dodge, Iowa. 1
In October, 1982, the State began proceedings to revoke the defendant's probation, based on numerous alleged infractions of the law and the facility's rules. The probation was revoked, and the defendant was sentenced to be incarcerated--but in jail, rather than in the custody of the director of adult corrections, and for a specified term of 120 days rather than a term of "no more than ten years," as would ordinarily be the case in a Class-C felony. See Iowa Code § 902.9(3). This, the State complains, is not permitted by our sentencing laws. For a Class-C felony, a defendant may be given a deferred judgment or deferred sentence or, as here, a suspended sentence. Iowa Code § 907.3. If a confinement is ordered on a Class-C felony, it must be for a term of "no more than ten years," Iowa Code § 902.9, and the defendant must be committed to the custody of the director of the division of adult corrections. It is therefore clear that the defendant could not have been given the 120-day jail sentence at the time of the original sentencing.
While the defendant concedes this sentence would not be available at the original sentencing, he argues that section 908.11 nevertheless allows the court on revocation of the probation to impose any sentence, provided it is not greater than that originally imposed (here an indeterminate ten-year sentence).
Our consideration of the law must begin with Iowa Code section 908.11. That section provides the procedure for probation revocation and concludes with this language:
If the violation is established, the court may continue the probation with or without an alteration of the conditions of probation, or may revoke the probation and require the defendant to serve the sentence imposed or any lesser sentence, and, if imposition of sentence was deferred, may impose any sentence which might originally have been imposed.
(Emphasis added.)
While the last sentence of the statute limits the sentencing alternatives in the case where the sentence has been deferred to "any sentence which might originally have been imposed," no similar restriction expressly appears in the statute as to the case where sentence was imposed but suspended. In that case, the defendant argues, the statute means just what it says: any lesser sentence may be imposed on revocation. If the legislature had intended to restrict the sentencing options in a case such as this, it could have easily added the same restrictive language, according to his argument.
The scant legislative history bearing on the adoption of section 908.11 is not particularly helpful. In this case, as in many others turning on statutory construction, there is no shortage of rules to look to. The defendant argues the statute is clear on its face; "any lesser sentence" means just that, and to restrict the court to only those options available at original sentencing would amount to judicial legislation. The plain language of the statute must control, according to him.
The manifest intent of the legislature, however, will prevail over the literal import of the words used. State v. Billings, 242 N.W.2d 726, 731 (Iowa 1976); State v. Buckley, 232 N.W.2d 266, 270 (Iowa 1975). In ascertaining that intent, we consider the object sought to be accomplished and the evil sought to be...
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