Opinion
20A-CR-1536
04-05-2021
Michael M. Williams, Appellant-Defendant, v. State of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff.
Appellant pro se Michael M. Williams Michigan City, Indiana Attorneys for Appellee Theodore E. Rokita Attorney General of Indiana Myriam Serrano Deputy Attorney General Indianapolis, Indiana
Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), this Memorandum Decision shall not be regarded as precedent or cited before any court except for the purpose of establishing the defense of res judicata, collateral estoppel, or the law of the case.
Appeal from the Allen Superior Court The Honorable David M. Zent, Judge Trial Court Cause No. 02D04-9803-CF-156
Appellant pro se
Michael M. Williams Michigan City, Indiana
Attorneys for Appellee
Theodore E. Rokita Attorney General of Indiana
Myriam Serrano Deputy Attorney General Indianapolis, Indiana
MEMORANDUM DECISION
ALTICE, JUDGE
Case Summary
[¶1] While serving an eighty-year sentence in the Indiana Department of Correction (the DOC) following his 1999 convictions for two Class A felonies, Michael Williams filed a pro-se Motion for Earned Credit Time Allowance with Memorandum of Law in Support (the Credit Time Motion). Williams appeals from the trial court's denial of that motion.
[¶2] We affirm.
Facts & Procedural History
[¶3] Following a jury trial on February 24, 1999, Williams was convicted of Class A felony attempted murder and Class A felony attempted robbery. He was also found to be a habitual offender. At the sentencing hearing on April 9, 1999, the trial court imposed an aggregated sentence of eighty years in the DOC. The trial court indicated in the abstract of judgment that Williams had been confined prior to sentencing for 391 days. Similarly, the judgment of conviction stated that Williams was granted credit for 391 days served in jail.
[¶4] On June 25, 2020, Williams filed the Credit Time Motion, arguing that he had not received good time credit toward his sentence. In response, on July 6, 2020, Assistant Chief Probation Officer Stephen Keele (P.O. Keele) reported to the court that he had investigated the matter and confirmed that the DOC had awarded Williams "(391) days of jail time credit and (391) days of earned time credit." Appendix at 34. On July 13, 2020, the trial court denied the Credit Time Motion without a hearing. Williams now appeals.
Discussion & Decision
[¶5] There is no dispute that at the time of sentencing Williams was entitled to total credit time of 782 days, which included 391 days of accrued time (time he was confined awaiting trial and sentencing) and 391 days good time credit (time awarded for good behavior while confined). See Ind. Code § 35-50-6-0.5 (providing definitions for the various types of credit time); I.C. § 35-50-6-3(b) (for offenses committed before July 1, 2014, a person assigned to Class I earns one day of good time credit for each day confined).
[¶6] Williams's claim that he did not receive the appropriate amount of credit time appears to be based on the fact that in the judgment of conviction the trial court listed only the number of days he had served in jail. Years ago, however, our Supreme Court adopted the following presumption: "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 [DOC] 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). The presumption established in Robinson, removed the need for our courts to adjudicate claims like Williams's on an individual basis. See Neff v. State, 888 N.E.2d 1249, 1252 (Ind. 2008) (noting that the presumption in Robinson, "removed the need for state courts to adjudicate these types of sentence claims on an individual basis").
[¶7] Here, where the judgment of conviction did not mention good time credit, the DOC would have known to award such credit time equal to the amount of time served. See id. And, in fact, the record shows that the DOC did just that in this case. See Appendix at 2 (a current report (Detail Credit Time Calculation) from the DOC indicates on the second line item that he received 391 days for time served and 391 days of earned credit time, for a total deduction of 782 days from the time remaining on his sentence); see also id. at 34 (P.O. Keele's report to the trial court indicating that the DOC had awarded both types of credit). Accordingly, Williams is not entitled to another 391 days of earned credit time, and the trial court properly denied the Credit Time Motion.
Williams appears to suggest that the DOC improperly added twenty days to his sentence. This claim was not raised below, and there is no indication that he has attempted to correct any such alleged error through the DOC offender grievance process. See Neff, 888 N.E.2d at 1252 ("Therefore, if the DOC had miscalculated Neff's earliest release date, a court would not grant relief unless Neff showed that he had exhausted his opportunities within the DOC offender grievance process."). Thus, the claim is not properly before us.
[¶8] Judgment affirmed.
Kirsch, J. and Weissmann, J., concur.