Robinson v. State
| Decision Date | 11 December 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 45A03-0307-PC-255.,45A03-0307-PC-255. |
| Citation | 799 N.E.2d 1202 |
| Parties | Quinn ROBINSON, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Quinn Robinson, Miami Correctional Facility, Bunker Hill, IN, Appellant pro se.
Steve Carter, Attorney General of Indiana, George P. Sherman, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee.
Appellant-defendant Quinn Robinson appeals the denial of his motion to correct erroneous sentence. We affirm.
The dispositive issue is whether the trial court's failure to record Robinson's pre-sentence good time credit in its abstract of judgment rendered Robinson's sentence facially erroneous.
On September 19, 1996, Robinson pleaded guilty to one count of Class B felony voluntary manslaughter. On October 17, 1996, Judge Pro Tempore T. Edward Page sentenced Robinson to twenty years' incarceration and credited him with 192 days "previously spent in confinement as a result of the charge in this cause." Appellant's App. (sentencing order). In the abstract of judgment, Judge Page recorded that Robinson had been confined 192 days "prior to sentencing." Id. (abstract of judgment).
On June 9, 2003, Robinson filed pro se a motion to correct erroneous sentence. In his motion, Robinson correctly noted that "[a] person imprisoned for a crime or imprisoned awaiting trial or sentencing is initially assigned to Class I" for credit time purposes. Id. () (quoting Ind.Code § 35-50-6-4(a)). Robinson also correctly noted that "[a] person assigned to Class I earns one (1) day of credit time [also known as "good time credit"] for each day he is imprisoned for a crime or confined awaiting trial or sentencing." Id. (quoting Ind. Code § 35-50-6-3(a)). Robinson further observed that in the abstract of judgment, Judge Page had recorded only the number of days he had been confined prior to sentencing ("time served"). From this, Robinson concluded that Judge Page had "improperly credited [his] sentence with time served and credit time" and requested either an evidentiary hearing or an amendment of the abstract of judgment to reflect a total of 384 days' credit against his sentence. Id.
That same day, Judge Clarence D. Murray summarily denied Robinson's motion.2 Robinson now appeals.
A petition for post-conviction relief, rather than a motion to correct erroneous sentence, is the preferred procedure for presenting a sentencing error. Funk v. State, 714 N.E.2d 746, 748 (Ind.Ct.App. 1999), trans. denied. A motion to correct erroneous sentence is appropriate, however, "where the sentence is erroneous on its face and that facial error occurs when the sentence violates express statutory authority." Reffett v. State, 571 N.E.2d 1227, 1229 (Ind.1991). As the relevant facts are undisputed, we review the denial of Robinson's motion de novo as a pure question of law. See Reese v. Reese, 696 N.E.2d 460, 462 (Ind.Ct.App.1998)
.
Id. (quoting Risner v. Indiana Parole Bd., 779 N.E.2d 49, 52 (Ind.Ct.App.2002)) (alteration omitted).
As in Hatchett, Robinson's abstract of judgment contains an entry for "No. of days confined prior to sentencing" but does not contain an entry for pre-sentence good time credit. In Hatchett, we characterized this as a ministerial omission that does not render a defendant's sentence facially erroneous and does not indicate that the defendant received only credit for time served, as Robinson suggests.4 Id. at 546-47 .
Simply because a trial court failed to record a defendant's pre-sentence good time credit in its judgment of conviction or abstract of judgment does not mean that the defendant failed to receive pre-sentence good time credit.5 Given the recent slew of pro se appeals that our court has considered on this issue, it is reasonable to infer that both trial courts and counsel assume that the Department of Correction ("DOC") determines a defendant's pre-sentence good time credit by referring to the number of days the defendant was confined prior to sentencing as recorded in the abstract of judgment. See, e.g., Senn v. State, 766 N.E.2d 1190, 1193-94 (Ind.Ct. App.2002)
(). In this case, as in Hatchett, we have no way of knowing whether the DOC actually makes such a determination because Robinson did not seek an administrative determination of his good time credit. See Ind.Code § 35-50-6-5.5 (). More to the point, we have no way of knowing whether Robinson failed to receive pre-sentence good time credit, as he claims.
As previously mentioned, a motion to correct erroneous sentence is appropriate only "where the sentence is erroneous on its face, and that facial error occurs when the sentence violates express statutory authority." Reffett, 571 N.E.2d at 1229. Such violation of express statutory authority occurs, for example, when the sentence violates the terms of a plea agreement, as in Reffett, or when the sentence exceeds the statutory maximum for a particular penalty, as in a ten-year sentence for a Class D felony. A trial court's failure to record a defendant's pre-sentence good time credit in its judgment of conviction or abstract of judgment is not dispositive of whether the defendant failed to receive pre-sentence good time credit and thus does not render the defendant's sentence facially erroneous. Once a defendant is sentenced and incarcerated, his remedy for correcting an alleged error in the determination of his pre-sentence good time credit lies with the DOC, not with the trial court. Accordingly, we affirm the denial of Robinson's motion to correct erroneous sentence.
Affirmed.
I respectfully dissent from the majority's holding that the trial court properly denied Robinson's Motion to Correct Erroneous Sentence. In a recent case, Crow v. State, 797 N.E.2d 319, 322 (Ind.Ct.App. 2003), a panel of this court held that Indiana Code section 35-38-3-2(b)(4), requires the trial court to include in its judgment of conviction both credit for time served and good time credit earned under Indiana Code section 35-50-6-3(a). The Court explained its rationale as follows:
First, as a policy matter, once a defendant has been committed to the DOC, the DOC is in the best position to handle the assignment and modification of credit classes based on inmate behavior while incarcerated. Conversely, our case law on this issue fails to explain why the DOC is in the best position to assign credit time for a defendant who is a pre-trial detainee or awaiting sentencing in a local jail facility. Rather, the trial court, with assistance from the local sheriff, is in a better position to determine whether a defendant who has been incarcerated locally is entitled to Class I credit. The presumption is that the defendant earns Class I credit for each day he is incarcerated awaiting trial or sentencing. I.C. § 35-30-6-3(a). However, as we acknowledged in Robinson [v. State], 789 N.E.2d [965] at 968 [(Ind.App.2003) ], under Indiana Administrative Code, title 210, rule 3-1-17, each sheriff is required to establish rules for inmate conduct and may, as a disciplinary action for violation of such rules, reassign prisoners to a lower credit time class or deprive them of earned credit time. Indeed, the Pre Sentence Investigation Report, which the county probation department submits to the trial court before sentencing, can easily include information for the court on the defendant's behavior and the defendant's earned credit time while awaiting trial and sentencing.
Second, it made sense in cases decided under the former credit time statutes that our courts would defer to the DOC on issues of good time credit for defendants incarcerated awaiting trial and sentencing because, as we have already noted, under the old statutory scheme, a trial court could only make recommendations on credit time. However, the current credit time statutes do...
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