In People v. Alfaro, No. 150437-8, the Michigan Supreme Court vacated the defendant’s sentence because the presentence report did not include the sentencing guidelines calculation for one of the defendant’s offenses of conviction as required by MCL 771.14(2)(e). The defendant was convicted of both first-degree criminal sexual conduct and second-degree criminal sexual conduct, and the presentence report included only a guidelines calculation for the first-degree conviction. The Court of Appeals previously held in an unpublished opinion that since there were multiple concurrent convictions, only the guidelines range for the highest-class felony applies, and the trial court therefore did not need to articulate reasons for an upward departure from the guidelines sentence for the second-degree conviction. The Michigan Supreme Court, by contrast, held that the court must calculate the guidelines range for both convictions because it is authorized to impose a consecutive sentence rather than a concurrent sentence, since the acts of criminal sexual conduct occurred in the same transaction.
Blogs
