Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA sentencing order that failed to account for a man’s not guilty verdict prompted a remand from the Indiana Court of Appeals on Thursday to fix the omission.
A jury tried Harley Crane on two counts: Class A Misdemeanor invasion of privacy and Class B misdemeanor possession of marijuana. The jury ultimately found Crane guilty of only the possession count, and the Marion Superior Court sentenced him to 180 days, with credit for 12 actual days served and the remaining 156 days suspended. It also ordered 90 days of probation.
But Crane appealed, arguing that his sentencing order failed to reflect the disposition of the Class A misdemeanor and his not guilty finding on that count. He sought remand, asserting that the accuracy of a sentencing order is important as a practical matter because sentencing orders “are used by the Indiana State Police to create criminal cross matches [that] play a role in establishing pretrial release terms and sentences.”
With the state in agreement that the case should be remanded to reflect the not guilty verdict, the Indiana Court of Appeals remanded in Harley R. Crane, Jr. v. State of Indiana, 19A-CR-2292.
“The sentencing order purports to show the crimes the defendant was charged with and the resulting dispositions. And yet this sentencing order does not include any information about Count I. The better practice is for sentencing orders to be complete and accurate with respect to the charges that were tried and the disposition of each, not just the charges that were reduced to a conviction. We therefore remand the case to the trial court to amend its sentencing order to reflect that Crane was also tried on Count I and found not guilty,” Judge Margret Robb wrote for the appellate court.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.