Hall v. State

944 N.E.2d 538, 2011 Ind. App. LEXIS 441, 2011 WL 887532
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedMarch 15, 2011
Docket25A05-1008-CR-534
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 944 N.E.2d 538 (Hall v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hall v. State, 944 N.E.2d 538, 2011 Ind. App. LEXIS 441, 2011 WL 887532 (Ind. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinion

OPINION

BAILEY, Judge.

Case Summary

Jason W. Hall (“Hall”) appeals the sentencing order entered upon his plea of guilty to two counts of Burglary, as Class B felonies. 1 We affirm.

Issues

Hall presents three issues for review:

I. Whether the trial court abused its sentencing discretion;
II. Whether his sentence is inappropriate; and
III. Whether he was erroneously denied credit time.

Facts and Procedural History

On May 5, 2010, Hall pled guilty to charges that he had committed two residential burglaries in Fulton County, Indiana. At that time, he was serving sentences for burglaries committed in Miami, Huntington, and Wabash Counties.

On July 12, 2010, the Fulton County Superior Court imposed concurrent sentences of ten years, with four years suspended, for each of the Fulton County burglaries. However, the trial court ordered that the concurrent sentences would be consecutive to the sentences received for the burglaries in the other counties. Hall was awarded no credit time against the Fulton County sentences.

On the same day, Hall filed a brief in the trial court, requesting credit time for the days he had spent in pretrial confinement beginning when Fulton County served an arrest warrant upon Hall while he was incarcerated on unrelated charges. The request for credit time was denied. Hall now appeals.

Discussion and Decision

I. DOC Misconduct Reports

The trial court found as aggravating factors Hall’s commission of multiple burglaries in multiple counties within a ten-month period, his prior criminal history, his DOC misconduct reports, and his poor work history. As mitigating factors, the trial court recognized Hall’s guilty plea and his completion of DOC programs. The trial court noted that the plea was *541 given minimal weight because Hall had been implicated by a co-defendant’s confession and that the program completion was “offset” by Hall’s “conduct reports at DOC.” (App.164.) Hall contends that the trial court erred “when it counted [his] DOC conduct as both an aggravating factor and reason to discount a corresponding mitigating factor.” Appellant’s Brief at 8.

“So long as the sentence is within the statutory range, it is subject to review only for abuse of discretion.” Anglemyer v. State, 868 N.E.2d 482, 490 (Ind. 2007), clarified on other grounds, 875 N.E.2d 218 (Ind.2007). This includes the finding of an aggravating circumstance and the omission to find a proffered mitigating circumstance. Id. at 490-91. When imposing a sentence for a felony, the trial court must enter “a sentencing statement that includes a reasonably detailed recitation of its reasons for imposing a particular sentence.” Id. at 491.

The trial court’s reasons must be supported by the record and must not be improper as a matter of law. Id. However, a trial court’s sentencing order may no longer be challenged as reflecting an improper weighing of sentencing factors. Id. A trial court abuses its discretion if its reasons and circumstances for imposing a particular sentence are clearly against the logic and effect of the facts and circumstances before the court, or the reasonable, probable, and actual deductions to be drawn therefrom. Hollin v. State, 877 N.E.2d 462, 464 (Ind.2007).

Hall alleges that the trial court used a single aggravating factor twice — to his detriment — when it was included in the list of aggravators and also permitted to offset the strength of a mitigating circumstance. Essentially, his complaint is that the trial court accorded too much weight to the aggravator of his DOC misconduct reports. Anglemyer prohibits a veiled attempt to have aggravators and mitigators reweighed. Accordingly, we proceed to address Hall’s inappropriateness argument.

II. Inappropriateness

Upon conviction of each Class B felony, Hall faced a sentencing range of six years to twenty years, with the advisory sentence being ten years. See Ind.Code § 35-50-2-5. Consistent with his plea agreement with the State, Hall was given concurrent advisory sentences with four years suspended. However, the trial court ordered that the concurrent sentences be served consecutive to the sentences imposed in Miami, Huntington, and Wabash Counties. Hall asks that we review his aggregate sentence and revise it pursuant to Indiana Appellate Rule 7(B) such that it is not to be served consecutive to the sentences from other counties.

Under Indiana Appellate Rule 7(B), this “Court may revise a sentence authorized by statute if, after due consideration of the trial court’s decision, the Court finds that the sentence is inappropriate in light of the nature of the offense and the character of the offender.” In performing our review, we assess “the culpability of the defendant, the severity of the crime, the damage done to others, and myriad other factors that come to light in a given case.” Cardwell v. State, 895 N.E.2d 1219, 1224 (Ind.2008). A defendant “ ‘must persuade the appellate court that his or her sentence has met th[e] inappropriateness standard of review.’ ” Anglemyer, 868 N.E.2d at 494 (quoting Childress v. State, 848 N.E.2d 1073, 1080 (Ind.2006)).

The nature of the instant offenses is that Hall broke into two residences in Fulton County. As to his character, Hall has a significant history of juvenile adjudications commencing in 2000 and criminal offenses commencing in 2002. He has had an ex *542 tremely limited work history and sought to obtain funds for illegal drugs by committing burglaries. Once incarcerated, he completed some educational and substance abuse programs, but also incurred misconduct reports for fighting.

The imposition of consecutive sentences here is justified by the fact that Hall committed multiple burglaries involving multiple households in various counties. The existence of multiple victims supports the imposition of consecutive sentences in order “to vindicate the fact that these were separate harms and separate acts against more than one person.” Serino v. State, 798 N.E.2d 852, 857 (Ind.2003).

As for the total length of the sentence, the advisory sentence was imposed, with four years suspended. In light of the nature of the offenses and Hall’s character, we do not find this sentence to be inappropriate.

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Bluebook (online)
944 N.E.2d 538, 2011 Ind. App. LEXIS 441, 2011 WL 887532, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hall-v-state-indctapp-2011.