State v. Harris

¶1*602OPINION

¶2The sole issue presented by this appeal is whether Defendant Billy Joe Harris’s 20-year sentence for aggravated sexual battery violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution or Article I, Section 16, of the Tennessee Constitution. We granted Defendant’s application to appeal in order to address whether his sentence is unconstitutionally disproportionate to his crime. Finding the sentence violates neither the State nor Federal Constitution, we affirm.

¶3The eight-year-old victim in this case attended a birthday party for a friend at Defendant’s home. After the party, the victim spent the night, sleeping with two other girls on a sofa-bed. The next morning she awoke to find Defendant fondling her chest under her nightgown and touching her in the genital area over her shorts. The victim reported the crime to her mother, the police were notified, and Defendant was arrested.

¶4In April 1989, Defendant was convicted of Aggravated Sexual Battery under T.C.A. § 39-2-606 (Supp.1988) 1Defendant was sentenced as a Range II Especially Aggravated Offender, T.C.A. § 40-35-107(5)(Supp.l988), to 20 years incarceration, the minimum sentence then mandated for commission of an aggravated sexual battery upon a child less than 13 years of age. Defendant’s conviction and sentence were affirmed by the Court of Criminal Appeals.2

¶5At the outset we note that because reviewing courts should grant substantial deference to the broad authority legislatures possess in determining punishments for particular crimes, “[ojutside the context of capital punishment, successful challenges to the proportionality of particular sentences [will be] exceedingly rare.” See Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277, 289-90, 103 S.Ct. 3001, 3009, 77 L.Ed.2d 637, 649 (1983) (emphasis in original) (quoting Rummel v. Estelle, 445 U.S. 263, 272, 100 S.Ct. 1133, 1138, 63 L.Ed.2d 382, 390 (1980)). Further, we announce no new constitutional rule today, but undertake only to clarify the reach of Article I, Section 16 of the Tennessee Constitution. Review of Defendant’s sentence was granted only because the matter was properly raised before the intermediate court and that court’s opinion did not address this particular contention.

¶6Pursuant to the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, “[excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” While this provision has historically been interpreted to require “that punishment for crime should be graduated and proportioned to [the] offense,” Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 367, 30 S.Ct. 544, 549, 54 L.Ed. 793, 798 (1910), the precise contours of the federal proportionality guarantee are unclear. See Harmelin v. Michigan, — U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 2680, 2703, 115 L.Ed.2d 836 (1991) (Kennedy, J., concurring in part). Nevertheless, recent federal jurisprudence convinces us that Defendant’s sentence passes federal constitutional muster. C.f., e.g., id.(sentence of life without parole for possession of 650 grams of cocaine); McQueary v. Blodgett, 924 F.2d 829 (9th Cir.1991) (23-year sentence for first degree assault); United States v. Williams, 923 F.2d 76 (8th Cir.) (life sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 181, 116 L.Ed.2d 98 (1991).

¶7Although the language of Article I, Section 16, of the Tennessee Constitution is virtually identical to that of the Eighth *603Amendment, this does not foreclose a more expansive interpretation of the Tennessee constitutional provision. See State v. Black, 815 S.W.2d 166, 188 (Tenn.1991).3 We therefore examine the scope of the Tennessee provision before turning to Defendant’s State constitutional challenge.

¶8We hold that the proper means by which to evaluate a defendant’s proportionality challenge under the Tennessee Constitution is that set forth by Justice Kennedy in Harmelin, — U.S. at -, 111 S.Ct. at 2702-09, 115 L.Ed.2d at 866-74 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part). Under this methodology, the sentence imposed is initially compared with the crime committed. Unless this threshold comparison leads to an inference of gross dispropor-tionality, the inquiry ends — the sentence is constitutional. In those rare cases where this inference does arise, the analysis proceeds by comparing (1) the sentences imposed on other criminals in the same jurisdiction, and (2) the sentences imposed for commission of the same crime in other jurisdictions.

¶9After examining Defendant’s 20-year sentence in light of the gravity of his offense, we hold that no inference of gross disproportionality arises. Defendant’s unlawful touching of the small child was a deliberate attempt to gratify his perverted desires which, the trial court specifically found, caused the victim mental suffering. Indeed, the traumatic memory of this battery may remain with the victim for life, perhaps to fester and manifest itself in as yet unknown manners. A 20-year sentence is not an unconstitutional punishment for this crime.

¶10There being no inference of gross dispro-portionality, we need not proceed to intra- and inter-jurisdictional analyses.

¶11Defendant’s 20-year sentence is not grossly disproportionate to his crime of aggravated sexual battery on an eight-year-old victim so as to constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution or Article I, Section 16, of the Tennessee Constitution. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals is affirmed.