Opinion
SC: 159642 COA: 342408
04-17-2020
PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. William Larenzo SHOULDERS, Defendant-Appellee.
Order
On order of the Court, the application for leave to appeal the March 28, 2019 judgment of the Court of Appeals is considered, and it is DENIED, because we are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court.
Markman, J. (dissenting).
I respectfully dissent because I would not deny leave to appeal but instead would remand for resentencing. Contrary to MCL 769.34(3)(a), which provides that "[t]he court shall not use an individual’s ... race ... to depart from the appropriate sentence range," the trial court here expressly referenced defendant’s race in order to justify its departure sentence below the legislative guidelines. For this reason alone, resentencing is warranted. Furthermore, however, the sentence of probation imposed, in my view, constitutes an abuse of sentencing discretion in light of the intrinsic seriousness of the offense at issue--operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated causing death, MCL 257.625(4). That is, for this offense, the sentencing guidelines always provide for a sentence of imprisonment, even where all other offense variables (beyond Offense Variable 3, which is necessarily scored at 50 points) are scored at zero and all prior record variables are also scored at zero. See MCL 777.12f ; MCL 777.33(2)(c) ; MCL 777.64.