State ex rel. Simpkins v. State
State ex rel. Simpkins v. State
Opinion of the Court
| T Granted in part and otherwise denied. Relator was convicted of several sex offenses involving minors including molestation of a juvenile under the age of 13 years in violation of R.S. 14:81.2. The trial court sentenced him for this offense to serve 10 years imprisonment at hard labor. In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence on direct appeal, the court of appeal determined, sua sponte, that relator’s 10-year sentence for molestation was illegally lenient under R.S. 14:81.2, as amended in 2006 to increase the penalty for a person who commits the crime of molestation of a juvenile when the victim is under the age of 13 years from one to 10 years imprisonment to 25 years to life imprisonment at hard labor. Specifically, the court of appeal made a factual determination that relator must have molested the victim during a five-month window between the effective date of the amendment and the victim’s 13th birthday. See State v. Simpkins, 44,197, pp. 17-18 (La.App. 2 Cir. 5/13/09), 12 So.3d 1021, 1032-33 (“[I]t | gdefies all logic that this repulsive pattern of lewd and lascivious conduct ... would occur before and after this five-month window, but abruptly cease, cold turkey, during this window.”), writ denied 09-1229 (La.2/5/10), 27 So.3d 296 and 09-1539 (La.3/5/10), 28 So.2d 1004.
After remand, the trial court re-sentenced relator under the amended penalty provision to serve life imprisonment at hard labor for molestation of a juvenile under the age of 13 years. Within the
In response to relator’s application in this Court after the lower courts denied him relief on all of his claims, the state concedes that relator is correct his sentence is illegal because the penalty, far in excess of the maximum 10-year sentence he initially received under the law as it read before the 2006 amendment, “is based on facts not found by the jury at trial, but assumed by the court of appeal when it order him resentenced.” The state therefore agrees that relator should be resen-tenced and we concur that the finality of the court of appeal’s decision on direct review does not preclude correction of relator’s sentence as a matter of La.C.Cr.P. art. 882. Accordingly, the application is granted in part to vacate relator’s life sentence for molestation of a juvenile under the age of 13. The trial court’s original sentence of 10 years imprisonment at hard labor for this offense is reinstated. Relator’s remaining claims, however, lack merit and the application is otherwise denied.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- STATE ex rel. John SIMPKINS v. STATE of Louisiana
- Cited By
- 6 cases
- Status
- Published