Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

614 So. 2d 1242

Docket No. 93-K-0144.

State v. Singleton

STATE of Louisiana v. Christopher SINGLETON.

Supreme Court of Louisiana

Decided March 19, 1993.

Supreme Court of Louisiana · decided 1993-03-19

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“To the extent that counsel also reserved appellate review of sentence as part of the guilty plea, denial of that review ... would jeopardize the voluntariness of those pleas.”

quoted by 4 later decisions, including State v. Joseph, 919 So. 2d 779 - State v. Jackson

“A. (1) Within thirty days following the imposition of sentence or within such longer period as the trial court may set at sentence, the state or the defendant may make or file a motion to reconsider sentence. (2) The motion shall be oral at the time of sentencing or in writing thereafter and shall set forth the specific grounds on which the motion is based. B. If a motion is made or filed under Paragraph A of this Article, the trial court may resentence the defendant despite the pendency of an appeal or the commencement of execution of the sentence. C. The trial court may deny a motion to reconsider sentence without a contradictory hearing. D. Failure to make or file a motion to reconsider sentence or to include a specific ground upon which a motion to reconsider sentence may be based, including a claim of excessiveness, shall preclude the state or the defendant from raising an objection to the sentence or from urging any ground not raised in the motion on appeal or review.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 648 So. 2d 974 - State v. Henderson

Relies on 338 So. 2d 584 - State v. Crosby

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1993-03-19

How this case has been cited

Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently December 2016

15 state decisions

80199320002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1PER CURIAM.

¶2Writ is granted. This case is remanded to the court of appeal for review on the merits of defendant's sentencing claims.

¶3Even assuming that La.C.Cr.P. art. 881.1 retroactively applied to defendant's sentencing on January 21, 1992, ten days before the statute's effective date on January 31, 1992, the statute provides that a motion to reconsider sentence "shall be oral at the time of sentencing or in writing thereafter...." Defense counsel began the combined guilty plea and sentencing proceeding on January 21, 1992, by objecting to the excessiveness of the eight-year sentences the court would impose, and by reserving appellate review of the sentence as part of defendant's guilty plea. State v. Crosby,338 So.2d 584 (La.1976). Counsel urged the specific grounds on which the court had not followed the new sentencing guidelines, effective January 1, 1992, relative to computing the length of sentence and to improperly rejecting suspension of sentence and probation as an alternative to imprisonment. These remarks constituted an oral motion to reconsider made "at the time of sentencing," alerting the court to specific problems that counsel found with the sentences at a time when the court could take corrective action, and obviating the need for a written motion filed after sentencing. To the extent that counsel also reserved appellate review of sentence as part of the *1243 guilty pleas, denial of that review on the basis of art. 881.1 would jeopardize the voluntariness of those pleas.

¶4LEMMON, J., not on panel.

/614/so2d/1242 · .json · Public domain