Sentencing; Acquitted conduct; People v Beck; Rational-jury approach; People v Brown; Assault with intent to commit CSC; MCL 750.520g(1); Felonious assault; MCL 750.82; Unlawful imprisonment; MCL 750.349b

The court held that the trial court did not rely on acquitted conduct when sentencing defendant for unlawful imprisonment and felonious assault. Defendant approached the victim in a grocery-store parking lot while carrying a knife and ordered her to get out of her vehicle, but the jury acquitted him of assault with intent to commit CSC involving sexual penetration. On appeal, the court rejected defendant’s argument that the sentencing court improperly found that he intended to commit a sexual assault, explaining that intent was relevant to both the acquitted charge and the felonious assault charge, and that a categorical bar on any overlapping fact would produce “absurd results.” Applying the rational-jury approach from Brown, the court held that the sentencing court would have violated Beck only if it found “defendant acted ‘with the intent to commit CSC involving sexual penetration,’ or language to” this effect, but the record did not show that it did so. Instead, it considered defendant’s explanation that he intended to steal the truck, cut his tether, and leave the state, and “took him at his word” that his intent “wasn’t to commit a sexual assault in that case.” The court also held that the trial court could consider defendant’s prior sexual-assault convictions because sentencing courts may consider prior offenses and tailor a sentence to “‘the particular circumstances of the case and offender.’” Finally, the court noted that defendant himself requested behavioral-remodification programming and that his within-guidelines sentence further supported that the trial court did not rely on acquitted conduct. Affirmed.