Departure sentence for second-degree murder; Reasonableness; Proportionality; People v Steanhouse; People v Dixon-Bey; People v Smith; OV 19 (interference with the administration of justice); MCL 777.49(c)

The court held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by imposing an out-of-guidelines sentence for defendant’s second-degree murder conviction. Defendant was convicted of murdering and dismembering his girlfriend, whose body parts were found in garbage bags inside the home they shared. The guidelines range was 225 to 357 months, but the trial court imposed a 35-year minimum sentence after finding this was a “uniquely brutal case.” The court rejected defendant’s argument that the trial court improperly relied on conduct already accounted for by his mutilation conviction, reasoning that the trial court relied on the “particular brutality” of cutting the victim’s body into pieces while the parties’ infant son was in the house. The court also rejected defendant’s argument that OV 19 already accounted for his efforts to conceal the crime. It reasoned that defendant “did more than lie about the victim’s whereabouts” because he dismembered the body and attempted to conceal the evidence, and the trial court reasonably found the guidelines did not adequately reflect “the brutality and depravity of” that conduct. Affirmed.