State v. Fair

736 N.E.2d 82, 136 Ohio App. 3d 184
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedJanuary 28, 2000
DocketCase No. 2-99-29.
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 736 N.E.2d 82 (State v. Fair) 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. Fair, 736 N.E.2d 82, 136 Ohio App. 3d 184 (Ohio Ct. App. 2000).

Opinion

Walters, Judge.

Appellant, Donald E. Fair, appeals a judgment of the Court of Common Pleas of Auglaize County, denying him credit for time served in the W.O.R.T.H Center. For the reasons that follow, we reverse the decision of the trial court.

On January 5,1998, Appellant pled guilty to one count of possession of drugs in violation of R.C. 2925.11(A), (C)(4)(a), a felony of the fifth degree. On February 19, 1998, after considering R.C. 2929.11 and 2929.12, the trial court found that appellant was amenable to community control sanctions and sentenced appellant to five years of community control sanctions, including an order that he successfully complete the W.O.R.T.H. Center program.

Thereafter, the Auglaize County Sheriff delivered appellant to the W.O.R.T.H. Center on February 20, 1998. On August 26, 1998, appellant was unsuccessfully terminated from the W.O.R.T.H. Center, and on September 29, 1998, appellant admitted to violating the terms of his community control sanctions. As a result, the trial court resentenced appellant to five years of community control sanctions, including an order to participate in the Pathfinder House program.

On February 1, 1999, appellant admitted to violating the terms of his community control sanctions for the second time after testing positive for the presence of alcohol on December 6, 1998. As a result, the trial court again sentenced *186 appellant to five years of community control sanctions; this time, including an order to serve six months of incarceration in the Auglaize County Correction Center. Subsequently, the trial court suspended appellant’s six-month jail sentence, and ordered him to complete the B.O.O.S.T. program.

On August 25, 1999, appellant once more admitted to violating the terms of his community control sanctions after testing positive for the presence of alcohol on August 16, 1999. As a result, the trial court determined that appellant was no longer amenable to community control sanctions, and sentenced appellant to a twelve-month prison sentence pursuant to R.C. 2925.11(A),(C)(4)(a). The trial court granted appellant two hundred forty-eight days jail time credit. However, the trial court refused to grant appellant any credit for time served in the W.O.R.T.H. Center.

Appellant now appeals the judgment of the trial court, assigning one error for our review.

“The trial court erred in not granting the Defendant-Appellant jail time credit for his confinement in the W.O.R.T.H. Center Program, a community based correctional facility.”

The authority to impose a sentence consisting of one or more community control sanctions is found in R.C. 2929.15. A community control sanction is defined as a sanction that is not a prison term and that is described in R.C. 2929.15, 2929.16, 2929.17, or 2929.18. R.C. 2929.01(F). Pursuant to R.C. 2929.15(B), a violation of the terms of a community control sanction affords the trial court with three alternatives. The court may (1) impose a longer time under the same sanction, subject to the five-year total limitation of R.C. 2929.14(A), (2) impose a more restrictive sanction under R.C. 2929.16, 2929.17, or 2929.18, or (3) impose a prison term on the offender pursuant to R.C. 2929.14, not to exceed the prison term reserved at the sentencing hearing.

Appellant claims that when the trial court imposed the twelve-month prison sentence pursuant to R.C. 2929.15(B), it erred in failing to grant jail-time credit for time served in the W.O.R.T.H. Center. Consequently, we are asked to determine whether time served in the W.O.R.T.H. Center, which both parties concede is a community-based correctional facility, constitutes confinement pursuant to R.C. 2967.191.

This court was recently faced with the issue of granting jail-time credit in State v. Hines (1999), 131 Ohio App.3d 118, 721 N.E.2d 1093. In Hines, we held that the defendant was entitled to jail-time credit when the trial court imposed a prison sentence for violation of community control sanctions. In that decision, we followed the rationale in State v. Giles (Mar. 29, 1996), Erie App. No. E-95-047, unreported, 1996 WL 139518, in which the Sixth District reasoned that whether a *187 defendant receives jail-time credit pursuant to R.C. 2967.191 depends on the nature of the confinement involved.

In Hines, we stated that there is an apparent, perceived conflict between the discretionary language of R.C. 2929.15(B) and R.C. 2967.191. R.C. 2967.191 states:

“The department of rehabilitation and correction shall reduce the stated prison term of a prisoner or, if the prisoner is serving a term for which there is parole eligibility, the minimum and maximum term or the parole eligibility date of the prisoner by the total number of days that the prisoner was confined for any reason arising out of the offense for which the prisoner was convicted and sentenced, including confinement in lieu of bail while awaiting trial, confinement for examination to determine the prisoner’s competence to stand trial or sanity, and confinement while awaiting transportation to the place where the prisoner is to serve the prisoner’s prison term.”

R.C. 2929.15(B) states:

“The court may reduce the longer period of time that the offender is required to spend under the longer sanction, the more restrictive sanction, or a prison term imposed pursuant to this division by the time the offender successfully spent under the sanction that was initially imposed.”

To clarify our previously stated position, we must point out that the statutes do not conflict with 'each other but, rather, work together. R.C. 2929.15(B) provides that if there has been a community control violation, and the trial court imposes a longer sanction, a more restrictive sanction, or a prison term, the court may, in its discretion, grant additional credit for time that the offender successfully spent under the original sanction. This provision, contrary to prior law, allows the trial court to grant credit in excess of time served in confinement; however, it does not affect the mandatory requirement that credit still must be granted for all time served in confinement. As it was prior to the enactment of R.C. 2929.15(B), time served by an offender in confinement is required to be credited against a subsequent prison term. R.C. 2967.191; Bearden v. Georgia (1983), 461 U.S. 660, 103 S.Ct. 2064, 76 L.Ed.2d 221.

Our decision to award credit in Hines was not difficult, due to the fact that the defendant was serving time in the county jail. We stated that there was no indication that the defendant’s time served in the county jail “was anything other than simple confinement.” Hines, 131 Ohio App.3d at 123, 721 N.E.2d at 1097. The result in Hines was consistent with the Supreme Court’s analysis in State v. Nagle (1986), 23 Ohio St.3d 185, 23 OBR 348, 492 N.E.2d 158

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
736 N.E.2d 82, 136 Ohio App. 3d 184, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-fair-ohioctapp-2000.