PEOPLE OF MI V JAMES PAUL BUTLER
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STATE OF MICHIGAN
COURT OF APPEALS
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,
UNPUBLISHED
August 6, 2002
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v
No. 231247
Oakland Circuit Court
LC No. 98-157910-FC
JAMES PAUL BUTLER,
Defendant-Appellant.
Before: Murray, P.J., and Sawyer and Zahra, JJ.
MEMORANDUM.
Defendant appeals as of right from his November 29, 2000 resentencing for being a
sexually delinquent person. We affirm. This appeal is being decided without oral argument
pursuant to MCR 7.214(E).
On July 20, 1998, defendant was convicted by a jury of one count of indecent exposure,
MCL 750.335a, and pleaded guilty to one count of being a sexually delinquent person, MCL
750.10a. Defendant was initially sentenced to one year to life in prison. Defendant appealed his
conviction and sentence as of right in Docket No. 214174. This Court affirmed his conviction,
but vacated the sentence as inconsistent with the statutory sentencing scheme embodied in MCL
750.335a and remanded for resentencing. On remand, the trial court resentenced defendant to
one day to life in prison. Defendant again appeals as of right.
This Court reviews sentencing decisions for abuse of discretion. People v Fetterley, 229
Mich App 511, 525; 583 NW2d 199 (1998). A sentence is an abuse of the trial court’s discretion
if it violates the principle of proportionality, which requires that a sentence be proportionate to
the seriousness of the circumstances surrounding the offense and the offender. People v
Milbourn, 435 Mich 630, 636; 461 NW2d 1 (1990). Defendant argues that the sentence violates
the principle of proportionality as set forth in Milbourn, supra, because considering his progress
between the time of the conviction and the time of resentencing, the court should have sentenced
him to one year in jail rather than one day to life in prison.
In this Court’s previous opinion in this case, we found that defendant’s prior sentence of
one year to life was proportionate, even if invalid, in light of defendant’s extensive criminal
history. Because a sentence of one day to life is somewhat less severe than but comparable to
the sentence of one year to life that this Court previously found to be proportionate, the sentence
must be affirmed under the law of the case doctrine. Grievance Administrator v Lopatin, 462
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Mich 235, 259-260; 612 NW2d 120 (2000); Johnson v White, 430 Mich 47, 53; 420 NW2d 87
(1988). Consequently, we conclude that defendant has not established that the court abused its
discretion in imposing sentence.
Affirmed.
/s/ Christopher M. Murray
/s/ David H. Sawyer
/s/ Brian K. Zahra
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