Robert Campbell and Willie Frank Jones, Jr., were jointly charged in a multi-count indictment with two counts of armed robbery, two counts of aggravated assault, and two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission оf a crime, in connection with the armed robbery of a convenience store. Both pled guilty to оne count of armed robbery. Prior to sentencing, the defendants filed constitutional challenges to OCGA § 17-10-6.1 (b) of the Sentence Reform Act *45 of 1994 (Ga. L. 1994, p. 1959), which imposes mandatory minimum sentences for persons convicted of certain serious violent felonies. Their motions were denied and each defendant was sentenced under OCGA § 17-10-6.1 (b) to a mandatory minimum of ten years in prison. 1 On appeal, they enumerate as еrror the trial court’s ruling upholding the constitutionality of OCGA § 17-10-6.1 (b), and they seek remand to the trial court for re-sentencing. We affirm.
1. While conceding that the mandatory nature of the penalty does not per se rendеr the punishment cruel and unusual, defendants assert that OCGA § 17-10-6.1 (b), as applied to them, deprives the sentencing court from exercising individualized discretion, and violates the proscription against cruel and unusual punishmеnt under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Art. I, Sec. I, Par. XVII of the Georgia Constitution.
Punishment is unconstitutionally excessive if it “(1) makes no measurable contribution to acceptable goals of punishment and hеnce is nothing more than the purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering; or (2) is grossly out оf proportion to the severity of the crime.”
Cox v. State,
2. Defendants assert that OCGA § 17-10-6.1 (b) violates the separation of powers doctrine of Art. I, Sec. II, Par. Ill of the Geоrgia Constitution. Although a separation of powers challenge was not asserted in the trial court, in the interest of judicial economy we exercise our discretion to decide the question. See
Paras v. State,
Trаditionally, it is the task of the legislature, not the courts, to define crimes and set the range of sentencеs. [Cits.] The legislature’s choice of sentence is insulated from judicial review unless it is wholly irrational or so grоssly disproportionate to the severity of the crime that it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
Isom v. State,
3. Nor were defendаnts deprived of due process of law because the statutory constraints upon the court’s discretion denied them meaningful allocution. This Court has long recognized that there is no right under either the State or federal constitutions to allocution upon the entry of a guilty plea,
Barksdale v. Ricketts,
4. Finally, defendants assert that the statute viоlates the Equal Protection Clauses of the United States and Georgia Constitutions.
Where a criminal statute does not discriminate on racial grounds or against a suspect class, equal protection and due process concerns are satisfied if the statute bears a “reasonable relation to a proper legislative purpose” and is “neither arbitrary nor discriminatory.” [Cits.]
Fleming v. Zant,
The mandatory sentenсe legislation of the Sentence Reform Act was introduced to make truth in sentencing a reality, by ensuring thаt upon the conviction for a serious violent felony, the offender will serve the full sentence ordered by the court. Ga. L. 1994, p. 1959. See also 11 Ga. St. U. Law Rev. 159 (1994). The Act became effective on January 1, 1995, after ratification by the voters of Georgia at the 1994 November general election of an amendment to Art. IV, Sec. II, Par. II of the Georgia Constitution. This amendment authorized the General Assembly to provide for mandatory minimum sentences and to impose restrictions on the authority of the State Board of Pardons аnd Paroles to grant paroles. Ga. L. 1994, p. 1959, § 18. The legislation bears a reasonable relationship tо the legitimate legislative concern of deterring crime and ensuring that a court imposed sentence will be served in its entirety.
Judgment affirmed.
Notes
OCGA § 17-10-6.1 (a) specifies as “serious violent felon[ies],” the offenses of murder or felony murder, armed robbery, kidnapрing, rape, aggravated child molestation, aggravated sodomy, and aggravated sexual battery. Subsеction (b) mandates that the sentence be served in its entirety and that no portion be suspended, reduced by parole or other sentence-reducing measures, or commuted by the State Board of Pardons and Paroles.