6.2Sentencing Judge

Generally, a defendant should be sentenced by the judge who presided at his or her trial, or accepted his or her plea, if the judge is reasonably available.¹ People v Bennett, 344 Mich App 12, 14 (2022); People v Lee, 489 Mich 289, 300 n 7 (2011); People v Pierce, 158 Mich App 113, 115 (1987). See also MCR 6.440.² However, a defendant can waive any error regarding the sentencing judge by failing to object after being informed that a different judge would conduct the sentencing. See People v Robinson, 203 Mich App 196, 197-198 (1993).

For example, the Court of Appeals remanded a case “for a new sentencing hearing before [the plea-taking judge] if he is still ‘reasonably available’ to conduct that hearing” where the chief judge issued an administrative order that assigned the plea-taking judge to another courthouse before defendant’s sentencing hearing and reassigned his case to a successor judge who sentenced him despite his objection. Bennett, 344 Mich App at 22-23 (noting that the facts of the case fall “squarely within the rule” that a defendant is entitled “to be sentenced before the judge who accepts the plea, provided that judge is reasonably available”) (quotation marks and citation omitted).

Further, a defendant is entitled to a professional and unbiased judge during the sentencing hearing. See People v Walker, 504 Mich 267, 285-286 (2019) (remanding case to a different trial court judge where the “defendant indicated at least eight times during his allocution that he had nothing further to say, [and] the trial judge continued to bait him, engaging in name-calling,” and where the trial court suggested that defendant “liked being in prison . . . and stated that it would have sentenced him more leniently but for his disrespect toward the court”).