Supreme Court: Sentences Can’t Depend On Restitution Repayment

May 2, 2016

Giving prisoners a lighter sentence if they are able to pay restitution within a certain period of time is an unconstitutional violation of inmates’ Fourteenth Amendment due process rights, the Florida Supreme Court has ruled.

The ruling overturned a 4th District Court of Appeal decision in the case of Jean Claude Noel, who was convicted of conspiracy to commit racketeering and first-degree grand theft. The charges stemmed from “an elaborate scheme to steal advance fees from victims who sought to obtain funding for their business projects,” according to court documents.

Prosecutors said Noel was a “sophisticated cog” in the conspiracy.

A Broward County circuit court judge ordered Noel to serve 10 years in prison, followed by 10 years of probation. In the sentencing order, the judge also wrote that Noel’s prison sentence would be reduced to eight years if he paid $20,000 in restitution — a portion of the $650,000 in restitution ordered as a condition of his probation — within 60 days.

The appellate court found that the sentence was constitutional because it did exceed not the maximum statutory duration, which would have been 30 years for each of the two counts of which Noel was convicted, and because judges have broad discretion to consider defendants’ financial circumstances when determining sentences.

In the 5-2 opinion, the Florida Supreme Court majority acknowledged that judges may consider defendants’ financial resources at sentencing. But, quoting from a U.S. Supreme Court opinion, the majority wrote that the “allowance for limited consideration of the defendant’s financial background does not undermine the core constitutional prohibition against imposition of a longer prison term as a substitute for a monetary penalty.”

Because Noel failed to make the restitution payment, “he received a harsher prison sentence,” the Florida justices wrote. The “automatic deprivation of two years of Noel’s freedom is ‘contrary to the fundamental fairness required by the Fourteenth Amendment,’ ” the majority added.

In a dissent, Justice Charles Canady objected that, “I would conclude that the trial court’s offer to mitigate Noel’s prison sentence as an incentive for Noel to disgorge a portion of his ill-gotten gains is not ’so arbitrary or unfair as to be a denial of due process.’ ”

Justice Peggy Quince joined Canady in the brief dissent.

by The News Service of Florida

Comments

2 Responses to “Supreme Court: Sentences Can’t Depend On Restitution Repayment”

  1. Anthony on May 5th, 2016 1:56 pm

    Restitution to victims is not a “monetary penalty”. It is returning what you stole.

    No one should go to jail because they can’t pay a fine… but giving back what you stole is not a fine. FL SC is inventing additional protections for criminals.

  2. David Huie Green on May 4th, 2016 2:36 pm

    Don’t shorten their sentences even if they repay.
    As part of the sentencing, take all their property to pay what can be paid and garnish some fraction of any future wages — if any — to repay what was stolen plus interest on the debt until repaid in full and anything accrued over their lifetimes upon their deaths .

    Probably as good as you can get.

    David for making crime not pay
    but criminals repay

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News