State v. Knight

681 P.2d 6, 106 Idaho 496, 1984 Ida. App. LEXIS 459
CourtIdaho Court of Appeals
DecidedMay 8, 1984
Docket15130
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 681 P.2d 6 (State v. Knight) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho 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. Knight, 681 P.2d 6, 106 Idaho 496, 1984 Ida. App. LEXIS 459 (Idaho Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

SWANSTROM, Judge.

Danny Lee Knight was charged with first degree arson for setting fire to a dwelling in late 1982. I.C. § 18-801. He pled guilty, as a result of a plea bargain agreement, and was sentenced to the custody of the Board of Correction for an indeterminate term not to exceed twenty years. Knight has appealed, contending the sentence was too harsh. The state contends that the appeal was not timely and should be dismissed. We hold that the appeal was timely. We affirm the sentence.

A judgment of conviction containing the sentence pronounced was entered by the district court on April 11, 1983. Knight then had forty-two days in which to file an appeal. However, at the time Knight was sentenced, I.A.R. 14(a) provided in part:

The time for an appeal from any judgment, order or decree in an action is terminated by the filing of a timely motion which, if granted, could affect any findings of fact, conclusions of law or any judgment in the action ... in which case the appeal period for all judgments, orders and decrees commences to run upon the date of the clerk’s filing stamp on the order deciding such motion.

On May 16, 1983, Knight filed a motion, under Idaho Criminal Rule 35, to correct or to reduce his sentence. This motion was denied on June 1. On July 7th Knight filed a notice of appeal from the judgment and from the order denying his motion.

The state argues that the notice of appeal was filed more than forty-two days after the entry of judgment and was therefore not timely. However, if a motion to reduce a sentence under I.C.R. 35 is one which terminates the time for filing an appeal under I.A.R. 14(a), the appeal period commenced on June 1. The appeal, filed on July 7, would then have been timely. If it is not such a motion, the time for filing this appeal from the judgment expired on May 23. We would then be precluded from reviewing the alleged excessiveness of the *498 sentence when it was originally pronounced. State v. Tucker, 103 Idaho 885, 655 P.2d 92 (Ct.App.1982). We would only have jurisdiction of the appeal from the order denying the motion to reduce the sentence. Our review then would be narrowed to the question of whether the sentence was excessive in light of new circumstances arising in the interval between pronouncement of the sentence and the date of hearing the motion. Id. at 888, 655 P.2d at 95.

Idaho Criminal Rule 35, at the time Knight made his motion, provided:

The court may correct an illegal sentence at any time and may correct a sentence that has been imposed in an illegal manner within the time provided herein for the reduction of sentence. The court may reduce a sentence within 120 days after the sentence is imposed, or within 120 days after receipt by the court of a mandate issued upon affirmance of the judgment or dismissal of the appeal, or within 120 days after entry of any order or judgment of the Supreme Court denying review of, or having the effect of upholding a judgment of conviction. The court may also reduce a sentence upon revocation of probation as provided by law.

The question thus becomes whether a motion to reduce a sentence is a motion that could “affect ... any judgment” within the meaning of I.A.R. 14(a).

“In its technical legal signification ‘sentence’ is ordinarily synonymous with ‘judgment’ and denotes the action of a court of criminal jurisdiction formally declaring to the accused the legal consequences of the guilt which he has confessed or of which he has been convicted.” 1 State v. King, 18 Wash.2d 747, 140 P.2d 283, 286 (1943). Accord People v. Ventura, 84 Cal.App.3d Supp. 8, 148 Cal.Rptr. 581 (1978); Vigil v. State, 563 P.2d 1344 (Wyo.1977). But see Thornton v. State, 576 S.W.2d 407 (Tex.Cr.App.1979). More particularly, a sentence is part of the judgment. See I.C. § 19-2501. In Vigil v. State, supra, the Wyoming Supreme Court stated:

The final judgment in a criminal case means sentence. The sentence is the judgment. Berman v. United States, 1937, 302 U.S. 211, 212, 58 S.Ct. 164,165, 82 L.Ed. 204. This is consistent with Rule 33(b), W.R.Cr.P., providing that, “A judgment of conviction shall set forth the plea, the verdict or findings, and the adjudication and sentence. * * * ” There is no judgment against the defendant until sentence is pronounced.

563 P.2d at 1349. Wyoming’s rule 33(b) is virtually identical to l.C.R. 33(b).

The 1983 version of I.A.R. 14(a) lends further support for the proposition that filing a rule 35 motion will terminate the time for appeal from the judgment of conviction. In amending that rule, our Supreme Court recognized the terminology differences between civil and criminal judgments by addressing each separately:

The time for an appeal from any civil judgment, order or decree in an action is terminated by the filing of a timely motion which, if granted, could affect any findings of fact, conclusions of law or any judgment in the action ... in which case the appeal period for all judgments, orders and decrees commences to run upon the date of the clerk’s filing stamp on the order deciding such motion. The time for an appeal from any criminal judgment, order or sentence in an action is terminated by the filing of a motion within fourteen (14) days 2 of the entry of *499 the judgment which, if granted, could affect the judgment, order or sentence in the action, in which case the appeal period for the judgment and sentence commences to run upon the date of the clerk’s filing stamp on the order deciding such motion. [Emphasis and footnote added.]

We therefore conclude that a timely motion to reduce or to correct a sentence under I.C.R. 35 is a motion which, if granted, could affect the judgment in the action. As such, Knight’s motion terminated the time for filing an appeal in this case on May 16. The appeal period commenced again upon the denial of the motion on June 1. Additionally, we are compelled to read the rule as providing that the entire forty-two-day appeal period begins to run anew. Cf. Barnes v. Hinton, 103 Idaho 619, 651 P.2d 553 (Ct.App.1982) (we have no power to change the plain meaning of a statute). Therefore, an appeal filed on July 7, thirty-six days after the order denying the motion, was timely. We now turn to the question of whether the twenty-year indeterminate sentence was unduly harsh.

Knight was sentenced to the maximum term of years allowed by law for first degree arson, I.C. § 18-801, although he was given an indeterminate rather than a fixed sentence.

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Bluebook (online)
681 P.2d 6, 106 Idaho 496, 1984 Ida. App. LEXIS 459, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-knight-idahoctapp-1984.