Case Title: State v. Blondin

Citation: 164 Vt 55, 665 A.2d 587

Docket Number: 94-048

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1995-07-28T00:00:00Z

Document:
STATE_V_BLONDIN.94-048; 164 Vt 55; 665 A.2d 587

[Filed 28-Jul-1995]


NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P. 40
as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports. 
Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Vermont Supreme
Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of any errors in
order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press. 


                                  No. 94-048


State of Vermont                                   Supreme Court

                                                   On Appeal from
    v.                                             District Court of Vermont,
                                                   Unit No. 3, Caledonia Circuit

Gerald W. Blondin                                  January Term, 1995



David Suntag, J.

Robert Butterfield, Caledonia County Deputy State's Attorney, St. Johnsbury,
and John W. Kessler, Assistant Attorney General, Montpelier, for
plaintiff-appellee 

Robert Appel, Defender General, and William A. Nelson, Appellate Defender,
Montpelier, for defendant-appellant 


PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.


     JOHNSON, J.   Petitioner appeals the district court's ruling that he is
not entitled to presentence credit for time served because he had already
received credit for that time toward a prior sentence.  We affirm. 

     On June 27, 1993, while on parole in connection with a 1969
second-degree murder conviction, petitioner was arrested for simple assault
and unlawful mischief.  The new charges also constituted parole violations,
which triggered revocation proceedings that were 

 

initiated that same day.  Petitioner was arraigned on the new charges on June
29, but failed to post the required bond; accordingly, a mittimus issued for
his pretrial detention.  On July 20, 1993, petitioner's parole was revoked
and he was given credit toward his paroled sentence for the time he spent in
custody following his June arrest.  On December 13, 1993, petitioner was
convicted of simple assault and acquitted of unlawful mischief.  On January
5, 1994, he was sentenced to eleven-to-twelve months to be served
consecutively to the paroled sentence.  Petitioner requested credit for the
six months he spent in custody serving the underlying sentence before his
sentencing on the assault conviction.  The trial court denied any credit and
petitioner appealed. 

     Petitioner argues that the plain meaning of 13 V.S.A.  7031(b) and the
case law construing the statute require that he be given credit for the six
months he spent in jail before he was sentenced on the simple assault
conviction, notwithstanding that (1) he received credit toward his underlying
murder sentence for the three weeks he spent in jail before his parole was
revoked, and (2) for the other five months, he was serving the underlying
sentence.  In short, defendant seeks double credit for the six months he
spent in jail between June 1993 and January 1994 -- credit toward both his
underlying sentence and his new sentence -- even though the district court
determined that the sentences should be served consecutively. 

     We decline to grant the double credit defendant seeks, which would, in
effect, make the underlying and new sentences concurrent for the six-month
period.  See Emerson v. State,