3160                                                 VETOES

not more than $100.00 18 months, or both fined and
imprisoned,..". The amendment to Section 467 (dealing
with receipt of such stolen goods) correctly and clearly
specifies that the punishment for that crime shall be a
fine of not more than $100.00 or imprisonment for not
more than 18 months or both.

One could certainly argue that in light of the
stated intention of the bill (as set forth in the title)
to provide consistent penalties for the two offenses, and
in light of the retention of the reference to "18 months"
and to the option of imposing both a fine and
imprisonment, a judge would be authorized to impose a
prison term of not more than 18 months even though there
is no reference to imprisonment preceding "18 months".
Alternatively, it may be that in light of the discrepancy
between a title indicating conformance of two penalty
provisions and a text which may be interpreted as not
allowing a prison term in one instance, the entire bill
would be held invalid and the present law would remain in
effect. If this bill did not involve a criminal offense
(and a fairly common one at that) it might well be
feasible to sign the measure and correct the matter at
the next session of the General Assembly.

However, it is our view that because of the
inadvertent deletion of the phrase "or imprisoned for not
more than" prior to the "18 months" reference, it can be
strongly argued that no prison sentence whatsoever may be
imposed for a violation of Section 34 1. While we
certainly cannot say that every trial judge in the State,
when confronted with such an argument, would agree, it is
our view that this argument would probably be successful
in a significant number of cases and that, accordingly,
the intended sentencing options would not be available.
In addition, defendants who are unable to convince a
trial judge that a prison term cannot be imposed might
well be successful in attacking such a sentence on
appeal. A successful challenge to the imposition of
prison terms would not affect the validity of the
conviction itself, but would leave in effect only a
relatively minor monetary penalty. The alternative
result of invalidating the bill altogether by reason of a
title defect, as suggested above, would leave intact the
prison sentence (under the existing law) but it can be
assumed that substantial confusion in connection with
sentencings would nonetheless have occurred.

For the reasons set forth above, we cannot recommend
that House Bill 1526 be signed in its present form. We
should note that if the bill is not signed, then the
various individual trial judges would continue to be able
to impose consistent penalties for the two related
offenses pursuant to the present sentencing latitude
pending reconsideration of a legislative conformance of