Commonwealth v. Malick

These appeals, consolidated for briefing and decision, arrive after a long and tortuous procedural history. They present questions of sentencing. One of them requires us to consider the purposes of restitution as a criminal law sanction.

In 1993, the defendant, Wajahat Q. Malick, pleaded guilty to nine indictments charging him with an elaborate scheme of larceny and embezzlement in the course of his employment as the financial comptroller of a substantial automobile dealership. The plea judge adjudicated him a common and notorious thief 1 and imposed a prison term of from eighteen to twenty…