Crew v. State

Full title: CREW v. THE STATE

Court: Court of Appeals of Georgia

Date published: Feb 19, 2003

578 S.E.2d 312 (Ga. Ct. App. 2003)

578 S.E.2d 312

Opinion

A03A0204.

Decided February 19, 2003

Motion to modify sentence. Carroll Superior Court. Before Judge Duffey.

Varon M. Crew, pro se. Peter J. Skandalakis, District Attorney, Charles M. Lane, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.

JOHNSON, Presiding Judge.

On July 28, 1997, Varon Mark Crew pled guilty to two counts of child molestation. The trial court sentenced Crew to serve twenty years on count one, and twenty years on count two to run concurrent with count one. Nearly five years later, on July 2, 2002, Crew filed a motion to modify his sentence, claiming the two counts arose from the same incident and constituted double jeopardy and that the evidence supported the offense of indecent exposure and not child molestation. The trial court dismissed Crew's motion. Crew appeals, requesting us to vacate the trial court's order and direct the trial court to conduct an evidentiary hearing on his motion to modify his sentence. Since Crew's motion to modify his sentence was not timely filed, the trial court had no jurisdiction to consider the motion and properly dismissed the motion.

A trial court's authority to vacate or modify a judgment ends with the expiration of the term of court in which the judgment was entered.¹ An exception exists when the sentence is one that the law does not allow.² But that is not the situation here, as Crew's sentence is well within the maximum allowed.³ Dismissal of the motion was required.

1 Eddleman v. State, 247 Ga. App. 753(2) ( 545 S.E.2d 122) (2001); Levell v. State, 247 Ga. App. 615, 616(1) ( 544 S.E.2d 523) (2001).

2 Battle v. State, 235 Ga. App. 101, 102 ( 508 S.E.2d 467) (1998).

3 OCGA § 16-6-4(b).

Judgment affirmed. Eldridge and Mikell, JJ., concur.

JOHNSON, Presiding Judge.

DECIDED FEBRUARY 19, 2003.