State v. Noble

1, Granted. Defendant was convicted of a fourth offense possession of marijuana and adjudicated as a third felony offender based on two prior guilty pleas to possession of cocaine. The trial court granted defendant’s motion to impose a sentence less than the minimum sentence mandated by the Habitual Offender law and sentenced defendant to serve five years imprisonment at hard labor. The court of appeal granted the state’s application for supervisory writs because it found that “the trial judge failed to articulate sufficient reasons to justify why the [five-year] sentence it imposed ... was…