Sentencing; The Sixth Amendment; Validity of MCL 769.34(10); People v Lockridge; People v Schrauben; United States v Booker; People v Posey; Proportionality; People v Milbourn

Concluding that it was bound by Schrauben, the court held that MCL 769.34(10) is valid as applied here. Given that defendant’s only challenge to his within-guidelines sentence on resentencing was that it was not proportional under Milbourn, in light of MCL 769.34(10), it declined to address his proportionality argument and affirmed his sentences. He was convicted of second-degree murder, CCW, and felony-firearm. After remand for resentencing, his guidelines range was 225 to 375 months. The trial court sentenced him to 30 to 60 years for his murder conviction. He argued that his sentence was “not proportional to the crime” due to his lack of a criminal record. He contended the court “should deem MCL 769.34(10) invalid to the extent it requires” the court to affirm within-guidelines sentences, and should overrule Schrauben in part. But the court found that the statute “does not violate the Sixth Amendment, for the reasons stated in Booker, . . . because, under the current sentencing guidelines scheme, the sentencing guidelines are not mandatory on all judges. MCL 769.34(10) leaves trial courts free to exercise discretion in sentencing defendants, including discretion to sentence” them outside the guidelines range. Thus, the statute “does not require sentencing courts to follow the statutory” guidelines. Further, as the court recognized in Posey, “MCL 769.34(10) ‘does not and cannot preclude constitutional appellate challenges to a sentence,’ such as arguments that a sentence constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.” It also permits the court to review challenges to within-guidelines sentences if the sentence was based on inaccurate information or was miscalculated. This “is more lenient” than when the guidelines were mandatory. The court held that “MCL 769.34(10) does not create the same constitutional violation present in Booker or Lockridge, and is not clearly violative of the Sixth Amendment.” That conclusion was further supported by binding precedent, as the court “in Posey already rejected the constitutional argument defendant” raised. Further, under MCR 7.215(J)(1), the court could not overrule Schrauben. It noted that defendant did not raise a constitutional argument as to his sentence, challenge the accuracy of the information on which the trial court relied, or argue there was an error in calculating his guidelines range.