Troy Phillips v. State of Indiana (mem. dec.)

• Court: Indiana Court of Appeals
• Decided: April 30, 2019
• Docket: 18A-CR-1621
• Status: Published

Opinion

MEMORANDUM DECISION Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), FILED this Memorandum Decision shall not be Apr 30 2019, 11:02 am regarded as precedent or cited before any CLERK court except for the purpose of establishing Indiana Supreme Court Court of Appeals the defense of res judicata, collateral and Tax Court

estoppel, or the law of the case.

APPELLANT PRO SE ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE Troy Phillips Curtis T. Hill, Jr. Miami Correctional Facility Attorney General Bunker Hill, Indiana Katherine A. Cornelius Deputy Attorney General Indianapolis, Indiana

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA

Troy Phillips, April 30, 2019 Appellant-Defendant, Court of Appeals Case No. 18A-CR-1621 v. Appeal from the Marion Superior Court State of Indiana, The Honorable Kurt Eisgruber, Appellee-Plaintiff Judge The Honorable Steven Rubick, Magistrate Trial Court Cause No. 49G01-0302-FB-31230

Crone, Judge.

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 18A-CR-1621 | April 30, 2019 Page 1 of 3 [1] Troy Phillips, pro se, appeals the trial court’s denial of his motion for jail time

credit. The sole issue presented for our review is whether the trial court abused

its discretion in denying his motion. Phillips has submitted an inadequate

record on appeal and consequently has waived our review of his claim.

Therefore, we affirm.

[2] Here, other than his mere allegations, Phillips has presented us with no

information to support his motion. The limited record before us indicates that

Phillips pled guilty to class B felony robbery and the trial court entered

judgment of conviction in January 2004. The record contains no copy of the

judgment or the trial court’s sentencing order. Consequently, we cannot

discern what credit time Phillips was actually awarded by the trial court, much

less whether he was entitled to more.

[3] Although Phillips claims that he served 325 days of presentence jail time and is

therefore entitled to 325 days of good time credit toward his sentence, we are

unable to consider his claim due to his failure to provide us with an adequate

record on appeal. We emphasize that pro se litigants are held to the same

standard as trained legal counsel and are required to follow procedural rules.

Evans v. State, 809 N.E.2d 338, 344 (Ind. Ct. App. 2004), trans. denied. It is the

appellant’s duty to provide a record that reflects the error alleged. Williams v.

State, 690 N.E.2d 162, 176 (Ind. 1997). To the extent the record is inadequate,

it results in waiver of the issue. Id.; see Thompson v. State, 761 N.E.2d 467, 471

(Ind. Ct. App. 2002) (failure to present adequate record regarding credit for

time served resulted in waiver of the issue on appeal). Based upon the limited

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 18A-CR-1621 | April 30, 2019 Page 2 of 3 and inadequate record before us, there is no way for this Court to determine

whether Phillips is entitled to any additional credit time. The issue is waived,

and the judgment of the trial court is affirmed. 1

[4] Affirmed.

Bradford, J., and Tavitas, J., concur.

1 Waiver notwithstanding, Phillips admits that the trial court properly stated in its sentencing order that he had spent 325 days in presentence confinement. We have no idea whether the trial court’s sentencing order also expressly accounted for good time credit. Even assuming that the sentencing order reported only actual days served, our supreme court has held: Sentencing judgments that report only days spent in pre-sentence confinement and fail to expressly designate credit time earned shall be understood by courts and by the Department of Correction automatically to award the number of credit time days equal to the number of pre- sentence confinement days. Robinson v. State, 805 N.E.2d 783, 792 (Ind. 2004). Thus, the sentencing order would have been corrected by presumption, and therefore the trial court properly denied Phillips’s motion for jail time credit, which was essentially a motion to correct erroneous sentence. See Brattain v. State, 777 N.E.2d 774, 776 (Ind. Ct. App. 2002) (holding that request for jail time credit was tantamount to motion to correct erroneous sentence).

Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 18A-CR-1621 | April 30, 2019 Page 3 of 3