Case Title: Rosalio Pedraza v. State of Indiana

Citation: 

Docket Number: 49S04-0711-CR-516

State: indiana

Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Date: 2008-05-22T00:00:00Z

Document:
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT 
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE 
Michael R. Fisher 
Steve Carter 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
Attorney General of Indiana 
 
 
Nicole M. Schuster 
 
Deputy Attorney General 
 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
 
 
In the 
Indiana Supreme Court  
 
 
No. 49S04-0711-CR-516 
 
ROSALIO PEDRAZA, 
 
Appellant (Defendant below), 
 
v. 
 
STATE OF INDIANA, 
 
Appellee (Plaintiff below). 
 
 
Appeal from the Marion Superior Court, Criminal Division 1, No. 49G01-0508-FB-139250 
The Honorable Tanya Walton-Pratt, Judge 
 
 
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 49A04-0609-CR-529 
 
 
May 22, 2008 
 
 
Shepard, Chief Justice. 
 
 
Appellant Rosalio Pedraza contends that the trial court improperly used the same prior 
conviction both as an element of one of his present offenses and as an aggravating circumstance 
supporting an increased sentence.  We conclude that under Indiana’s new “advisory” sentencing 
scheme, such use of a prior conviction does not amount to an impermissible double 
enhancement. 
 
FILED
CLERK
of the supreme court,
court of appeals and
tax court
May 22 2008, 3:13 pm
 
Facts and Procedural History 
 
 
Around midnight on August 13, 2005, appellant Rosalio Pedraza drove through a red 
light at a traffic intersection in front of the White River Gardens in Indianapolis.  His SUV struck 
another vehicle containing five people who had just left a wedding reception.  Two of the 
passengers died; one was seriously injured.   
 
 
At the scene of the accident, Pedraza appeared confused and had bloodshot, watery eyes.  
He slurred his speech and smelled strongly of alcohol.  Both empty beer cans and full ones lay 
strewn about the interior of his vehicle.  A blood alcohol test revealed Pedraza’s blood alcohol 
content was 0.26.  Additional tests revealed cocaine metabolites in his bloodstream.  Pedraza 
later admitted that he had been drinking since the day before and had consumed about fifteen 
beers that day.   
 
 
A jury found Pedraza guilty on numerous counts.  During sentencing, the trial court noted 
the following aggravating circumstances: (1) Pedraza’s criminal history; (2) his need for 
rehabilitation and the failure of prior attempts to rehabilitate; and (3) the nature and 
circumstances of the present offenses.  The court found as mitigation Pedraza’s expression of 
remorse at sentencing and his admission he had consumed fifteen beers at the time of the 
offense.  The court found that the aggravators and mitigators applied to all of the counts and that 
the aggravators outweighed the mitigators.  (Tr. at 306-09.) 
 
The court sentenced Pedraza as follows:  (A) Count II: Operating a motor vehicle with a 
B.A.C. of greater than 0.15, causing death, a class B felony, enhanced by being an habitual 
substance offender, twenty-six years in prison; (B) Count V: Operating a motor vehicle with a 
B.A.C. of greater than 0.15, causing death, a class B felony, eighteen years; and (C) Count XI: 
Operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated (OWI) causing serious bodily injury, with a 
conviction for OWI within the past five years, a class C felony, eight years.  (App. at 15, 19-20; 
Tr. at 306-09.)  The court ordered consecutive sentences, resulting in an aggregate penalty of 
fifty-two years.  (Tr. at 309.) 
 
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Pedraza appealed, arguing in part that the trial court improperly used the same prior 
convictions both to elevate Count XI to a class C felony and as an aggravating circumstance in 
choosing the sentence on Count XI.  The Court of Appeals affirmed.  Pedraza v. State, 873 
N.E.2d 1083 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007).  We granted transfer. 
 
 
Double Enhancements in Indiana Criminal Sentencing 
 
 
Indiana policy on double enhancements in criminal sentencing has a brief but winding 
history, involving decisions by both the legislature and the courts.  As Justice Sullivan noted last 
year, the General Assembly has reacted to court decisions on double enhancement sometimes by 
explicitly authorizing it and sometimes by prohibiting it.  See Mills v. State, 868 N.E.2d 446, 451 
(Ind. 2007).1 
 
 
A significant statutory shift occurred in 2005, when the General Assembly revised our 
criminal sentencing scheme.  Before the 2005 legislation, Indiana used “presumptive” sentences.  
Sentencing decisions began with the fixed presumptive sentence for a given crime, which could 
then be increased or decreased based on additional findings.  We held this scheme 
unconstitutional, Smylie v. State, 823 N.E.2d 679 (Ind. 2005), following the U.S. Supreme Court 
decisions in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), and Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 
296 (2004). 
 
The General Assembly responded by eliminating fixed presumptive terms in favor of 
“advisory” sentences for each offense.  It declared that a court could impose any sentence within 
the statutory range set for the crime, “regardless of the presence or absence of aggravating 
circumstances or mitigating circumstances.”  Ind. Code Ann. § 35-38-1-7.1(d) (West 2007).  See 
also Anglemyer v. State, 868 N.E.2d 482, 488 (Ind. 2007).  Trial judges must provide a 
                                                 
1 Cf. Shirley S. Abrahamson and Robert L. Hughes, Shall We Dance?  Steps for Legislators and Judges in Statutory 
Interpretation, 75 Minn. L. Rev. 1045, 1055 (1991) (describing the interplay of court decisions followed by 
legislative action followed by additional court decisions as a kind of “dialogue”). 
 
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statement of reasons for a given sentence if they find aggravating or mitigating circumstances.  
Ind. Code Ann. § 35-38-1-3. 
 
 
Indiana sentencing used to be a two-step process – imposing of the presumptive sentence, 
then deciding whether any aggravators or mitigators warranted deviation.  After the 2005 
modifications, it consists of only one discretionary determination.  Thus, a sentence toward the 
high end of the range is no longer an “enhanced sentence” in the sense that the former regime 
provided.  Moreover, while the trial court must still list in its sentencing statement those reasons 
it finds relevant to the sentence, the correlation between those factors and the given sentence is 
not as precisely tailored as it was under the presumptive sentencing scheme. 
 
These changes are significant enough to affect our double enhancement jurisprudence.  
Although Pedraza complains of only one improper double enhancement, we see three sentencing 
phenomena in his case that merit discussion. 
 
 
A.  Aggravator and Habitual Offender Status Based on Same Prior Conviction.  In Ross 
v. State, 274 Ind. 588, 413 N.E.2d 252 (Ind. 1980), this Court first confronted a claim of 
improper double enhancement.  Ross claimed that the use of his prior criminal record both as an 
aggravating circumstance and as support for habitual offender status constituted double 
punishment that violated the proscription against double jeopardy.  We affirmed the sentence 
because his prior convictions were only one aggravating factor among others in the trial court’s 
sentencing decision. 
 
Thereafter, we held that a history of criminal activity used as proof for a habitual offender 
finding cannot also be the sole aggravating circumstance used to enhance a sentence.  McVey v. 
State, 531 N.E.2d 458, 461 (Ind. 1988).  Four years later, we explained that “it is permissible for 
the trial court to consider the same prior offenses for both enhancement of the instant offense and 
to establish habitual offender status.”  Jones v. State, 600 N.E.2d 544, 548 (Ind. 1992).  These 
declarations obviously stand in some tension. 
 
 
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Ross, McVey, and Jones applied to presumptive sentences that were enhanced by the 
presence of aggravating circumstances.  Under the 2005 statutory changes, trial courts do not 
“enhance” sentences upon finding such aggravators.  Consequently, we conclude that when a 
trial court uses the same criminal history as an aggravator and as support for a habitual offender 
finding, it does not constitute impermissible double enhancement of the offender’s sentence.  
Whether a sentence on the higher end of the sentencing range is appropriate under such 
circumstances will vary from offense to offense and from one prior criminal record to another. 
 
The trial court did not err in Pedraza’s case on this score. 
 
 
B.  Aggravator and Elevated Criminal Charge Based on Same Prior Conviction.  
Another rule established early on in this field provides that a material element of a crime may not 
also form an aggravating circumstance to support an enhanced sentence.  Townsend v. State, 498 
N.E.2d 1198, 1201 (Ind. 1986).  For the same reasons we stated above, based on the 2005 
statutory changes, this is no longer an inappropriate double enhancement.  Still, a trial court that 
imposed a maximum sentence, explaining only that an element was the reason, would have 
provided an unconvincing reason that might warrant revision of sentence on appeal.2 
 
 
In Pedraza’s case, the jury convicted him of OWI causing serious bodily injury, an 
element of which is having an OWI conviction in the last five years.  The prosecution relied on 
Pedraza’s OWI conviction from 2001 to satisfy this requirement.  The trial court then listed 
Pedraza’s criminal history, consisting of the 2001 OWI conviction and another OWI in 2003, as 
an aggravating circumstance for the same count.  Because the new sentencing scheme authorizes 
imposition of a given sentence “regardless of the presence or absence of aggravating 
circumstances or mitigating circumstances,” the trial court did not err when it listed Pedraza’s 
prior OWI convictions for both purposes. 
 
 
C.  Habitual Offender Status and Enhanced Criminal Charge on Separate Counts.  In 
another case we decide today, we conclude that where enhancements of separate counts are 
                                                 
2 For example, a maximum burglary sentence based solely on the opening of an unlocked screen door would be 
much less appropriate than one committed by obliterating a locked wooden door with a battering ram. 
 
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based on the same prior conviction, ordering these sentences to run consecutively does constitute 
an improper double enhancement, absent explicit legislative authorization.  Sweatt v. State, No. 
49S02-0805-CR-290, ___ N.E.2d ___ (Ind. May 22, 2008). 
 
Here, the trial court used the same 2001 OWI conviction to elevate Count XI to a class C 
felony and enhance Count II because of Pedraza’s status as a habitual substance offender.  The 
court then ordered these sentences to run consecutively.  In accord with our decision in Sweatt, 
we direct the trial court to resentence Pedraza such that the 2001 conviction is not used for both 
purposes in consecutive sentences. 
 
 
Conclusion 
 
 
The Court of Appeals correctly rejected Pedraza’s other allegations of error.  Ind. 
Appellate Rule 58(A).  But for the resentencing just mentioned, we affirm the decision of the 
trial court. 
 
Dickson, Sullivan, Boehm, and Rucker, JJ., concur.