FOR PUBLICATION
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT: ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE:
NICALE L. RECTOR STEVE CARTER
Anderson, Indiana Attorney General of Indiana
MONIKA PREKOPA TALBOT
Deputy Attorney General
Indianapolis, Indiana
WILLIAM T. TATE, )
)
Appellant-Defendant, )
)
vs. ) No. 48A02-0311-CR-962
)
STATE OF INDIANA, )
)
Appellee. )
OPINION - FOR PUBLICATION
Likewise, Indiana Code § 35-50-6-3 (Burns Code Ed. Repl. 1998) discusses the application
of credit time to a defendants sentence. Specifically, it authorizes that a
defendant receive credit time, be it for Class I or Class II credit,
for each day he is imprisoned for a crime or confined awaiting trial
or sentencing. Id. In Stephens v. State, 735 N.E.2d 278, 284
(Ind. Ct. App. 2000), trans. denied, this court noted that determination of a
defendants pretrial credit time is dependent upon two factors: (1) pretrial confinement and
(2) the pretrial confinement being a result of the criminal charge for which
the sentence is being imposed.
In this case, no one disputes that the pretrial confinement was based upon
the charges to which Tate admitted guilt on August 12, 2003, not for
the third charge which was pending at the time of sentencing. Thus,
according to the clear mandates of the sentencing statutes and prior interpretation of
them, Tate should have received credit time against the aggregate sentence he received
for the crimes to which he had been detained prior to sentencing.
See id. (stating that where a defendant receives consecutive terms he is allowed
credit time against the total or aggregate of the terms). Because he
was not detained on the pending third charge during the period in question,
he could not receive any credit time against the sentence he received for
it.
Nonetheless, on the surface it appears that Tate received exactly what he asked
for. At the sentencing hearing, the following colloquy took place:
Judge: Alright, and they have to be consecutive and you are asking that I
save the credit time for the cases [sic] pending. I will do
it however you ask me to do it. If he wants the
credit time on this, I will give it to him, but he cant
get it both ways.
[Counsel]: That would be my request that he save it for the case
that is still pending.
[Prosecutor]: Yeah, I think that Mr. Reeder represents him on that, is that correct?
[Counsel]: Yes.
Judge: Alright, so we need to make a mental note that the credit time
that he had while in pretrial detention . . . . Transcript
at 29.
From this, there can be no doubt that Tate asked the trial court
to save the pretrial detention credit for the pending charge. A strong
argument can be made that Tate has waived his right to the pretrial
credit. Were we to hold that Tate had waived his right to
the pretrial detention credit, Tate would then be forced to pursue other remedies,
whether they be civil or not.
Be that as it may, it appears that the law precludes the trial
court from giving Tate what he and his counsel asked for. Additionally,
the State did not seek to have Tates claim waived due to his
request that the credit time be saved. Rather, the State has joined
Tate in arguing that the trial court could not retain the credit time
for later use.
Given the clear mandate set forth in I.C. § 35-38-3-2 that the trial
court must provide a copy of the judgment of conviction and sentence to
the receiving authority and that it must include the amount of credit time
earned for time spent in confinement before sentencing, in addition to case law
which has consistently held that the pretrial credit must arise from pretrial confinement
for the criminal charge for which the defendant is sentenced, we conclude that
the trial court erred in failing to award Tate his credit time when
he was sentenced. Thus, we remand to the trial court to revise
the sentence so that Tate receives the credit time which he earned.
In so doing, we recognize that we do not know whether any subsequent
action has been taken in regard to the third charge which was pending
at the time of Tates sentencing. If Tate has been sentenced upon
that charge, it may very well be that the credit time was applied
to that charge. If such is the case, the sentence upon that
charge will have to be amended to reflect any changes made to the
prior sentence so that Tate does not receive double credit, which was appropriately
the trial courts concern based upon Tates initial request to save the credit
time.
We reverse, and the cause is remanded to the trial court to revise
the sentence which Tate received to reflect that he is entitled to pretrial
detention credit.
MAY, J., and VAIDIK, J., concur.