State v. Edwards

515 N.E.2d 643, 33 Ohio App. 3d 233, 1986 Ohio App. LEXIS 10272
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedAugust 13, 1986
DocketC-860077 and -860078
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 515 N.E.2d 643 (State v. Edwards) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Edwards, 515 N.E.2d 643, 33 Ohio App. 3d 233, 1986 Ohio App. LEXIS 10272 (Ohio Ct. App. 1986).

Opinion

Black, J.

The principal issue raised in this appeal is whether a court has discretion under R.C. 5143.03 to sentence a male between the ages of twenty-one and thirty years to a reformatory rather than a penitentiary if he has previously been sentenced to a term in the reformatory but has been held in the county jail pending transportation to the reformatory. We hold that under these circumstances the convicted male has begun to serve a sentence in a correctional institution, and that the statute gives the court no discretion to sentence him to a reformatory but only to a penitentiary.

Defendant Kennie G. Edwards appeals from multiple sentences imposed under two indictments for offenses for which he had pleaded guilty on January 6, 1986, as follows:

(1) Indictment B-853351, issued October 3, 1985 (Appeal No. C-860078), charged Edwards with three counts of aggravated robbery and two counts of kidnapping; each of the five counts was accompanied by a specification that Edwards had a firearm on his person or under his control while committing the offense described in that count. Edwards pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated robbery and the two accompanying firearm specifications.

(2) Indictment B-853546, issued October 10, 1985 (Appeal No. C-860077), charged Edwards with one count of aggravated robbery accompanied by a firearm specification and one count of theft of a motor vehicle. Edwards pleaded guilty to both counts and the firearm specification.

On the date of the guilty plea, defendant was being held in the Hamilton County Jail under a one-year sentence to the reformatory for receiving stolen property that had been imposed by the same trial court on November 4,1985 (case No. B-852341). It appears that he had not been transported to the reformatory but was being held in the county jail by reason of the pending indictments.

On January 6, 1986, Edwards’s defense counsel and the prosecutor presented to the court a negotiated plea bargain, whereby Edwards would plead guilty to all the charges of the October 10 indictment and to two of the aggravated robbery charges and accompanying firearm specifications of the October 3 indictment, in return for dismissal of the remaining three counts of the October 3 indictment. The bargain included an agreement that the sentence would run concurrently with Edwards’s reformatory sentence.

After the presentation of the terms of the plea bargain, the court questioned Edwards about the volun-tariness of his plea. The prosecutor then recited the facts of the offenses remaining before the court. At that point, the court questioned Edwards extensively about his understanding of the guilty pleas, of the rights he was waiving, of the possible sentences and fines and about the voluntariness of his plea. The court then asked defense counsel for his statement in mitigation, *235 after which the court heard a brief statement by Edwards.

Before the court passed sentence, defense counsel requested that the sentence imposed be to the reformatory, and the court responded, as follows:

“MR. GAINES [defense counsel]: Judge, when we were last here, I believe that was the 4th of November, the Court did sentence him on the receiving charge. Though he is under that sentence to the reformatory, previously imposed sentence, we would ask the Court and make the request that this sentence be served in the reformatory.
“THE COURT: I really don’t think I have a choice in that matter. Having sentenced him on one prior occasion to this occasion, I think it must be penitentiary. Did you have any feeling?
“MR. APPLEGATE [prosecutor]: That’s my understanding, Judge. Once he’s been sentenced to hard time, he has to go to the pen the second time.
“MR. GAINES: I would make the request based upon the fact that at all times he’s been here in the Hamilton County jail, has not yet been submitted to the custody of the reformatory. We make the request of record and of the Court.”

The court then sentenced Edwards to the penitentiary for a minimum term of five years’ actual confinement and a maximum term of twenty-five years on each aggravated robbery and a term of two years for theft, all to run concurrently with each other and concurrently with the one-year sentence under B-852341, as well as three years of actual confinement on each of the three firearm specifications, each of which was to run consecutively to all other sentences.

In the one and only assignment of error presented by appellate counsel, appellant alleges that, under R.C. 5143.03, the court had a choice of sentencing him either to the reformatory or to the penitentiary, but that the court erroneously thought it had no choice and thus failed to exercise the discretion available to it under the statute. He relies on State v. Simmons (Dec. 16, 1981), Hamilton App. No. C-810081, unreported, where this court differentiated between “reaching a particular result in the exercise of discretion, and reaching a similar result because discretion was erroneously thought not to exist.” He argues that in this case discretion did exist under the statute and thus the case should be remanded, as was done in Simmons, to afford the trial court the opportunity to exercise that discretion. We do not agree.

R.C. 5143.03 provides in pertinent part:

“Male persons between the ages of twenty-one and thirty years may be sentenced to the reformatory instead of the penitentiary, if such males have not been known previously to have served a sentence in a federal, state, or other prison or correctional institution and if the court passing sentence deems them amenable to reformatory methods.”

The statute gives the court an option to send a convicted male aged twenty-one to thirty to the reformatory, provided that the court is not aware that the offender has previously “served a sentence” in a prison or correctional institution. Edwards argues that he had not served his previous reformatory sentence for purposes of this provision, because he was being held in the local jail and had not yet been delivered to the reformatory. We hold that any period of incarceration following imposition of a sentence constitutes the serving of that sentence for the purposes of R.C. 5143.03.

The function of reformatories is to separate youthful first offenders from the potentially harmful influences of *236 older and repeat offenders. State, ex rel. McKee, v. Cooper (1974), 40 Ohio St. 2d 65, 71, 69 O.O. 2d 396, 399, 320 N.E. 2d 286, 290. The background of the instant case reveals that Edwards was already a repeat offender and for that reason alone was not within the contemplation of the statute. However, the precise issue of whether he had already begun to serve his prior sentence, thus depriving the court of discretion under R.C. 5143.03, is one of first impression.

There are cases holding that a sentence does not begin to run immediately upon imposition of the sentence but rather upon delivery of the convicted person to the penal institution. Watmuff v. Perini (1969), 19 Ohio St. 2d 163, 48 O.O. 2d 197, 249 N.E. 2d 887; State, ex rel.

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2007 Ohio 7215 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 2007)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
515 N.E.2d 643, 33 Ohio App. 3d 233, 1986 Ohio App. LEXIS 10272, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-edwards-ohioctapp-1986.