State v. Patrick McFarlane(075938)

Defendant chased an unarmed man, whom he was attempting to rob, and shot him in the back with a revolver. The victim was alive and gasping for air after he fell to the ground, but defendant robbed him and left him to die. Defendant was convicted of first-degree murder, among other things, and sentenced to sixty years in prison.

We are called upon to determine whether defendant’s sentence should be vacated and the matter remanded for resentencing before a different judge, because the trial judge remarked during a subsequent, unrelated status conference that he always gives sixty-year sentences…