Case Title: Craig v. State

Citation: 375 So. 2d 1257

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1979-11-02T00:00:00Z

Document:
Craig v. State1991 WY 7804 P.2d 686Case Number: 90-105Decided: 01/23/1991Supreme Court of Wyoming
 
 
Billy Joe 
CRAIG,

Appellant 
(Defendant),

 

v.

 

The STATE 
of Wyoming,

Appellee 
(Plaintiff).

 
 

Appeal from 
order of the District Court, Sheridan 
County, James N. 
Wolfe, J.

 

Leonard D. 
Munker, State Public Defender, Steven E. Weerts, Sr. Asst. Public Defender, and 
David M. Gosar, Appellate Counsel, for 
appellant.

 

Joseph B. 
Meyer, Atty. Gen., John W. Renneisen, Deputy Atty. Gen., Karen A. Byrne, Sr. 
Asst. Atty. Gen., Theodore E. Lauer, Director, Prosecution Assistance Program, 
and Larry D. Saunders, Student Intern, for appellee.

 

Before 
URBIGKIT, C.J., and THOMAS, CARDINE, MACY and GOLDEN, JJ.

 

URBIGKIT, Chief 
Justice.

 

[¶1]  After Billy Joe Craig (Craig) violated 
his conditions of probation on three separate occasions, a district court 
reinstated his original three to five year sentence for grand larceny. That 
court refused to credit Craig's original sentence with the days he had been in 
custody after the first and second times he had failed to comply with probation 
requirements. Craig questions whether a court may refuse to credit his original 
sentence with the days he spent in custody before his original sentence was 
reinstated. Craig claims that those days in custody must be credited to his 
original sentence. We agree.1

 
FACTS

 

[¶2]  Craig stole a vehicle on 
June 20, 
1987, for which 
he was arrested on July 7, 
1987. After 
spending fourteen days in jail, he pled guilty to grand larceny on 
July 20, 
1987. He was 
sentenced to three to 
five years in 
the state penitentiary but his jail time was suspended on the condition that he 
complete five years of probation. About a year later, on May 14, 
1988, Craig 
violated his probation when he escaped from the Sheridan County, Wyoming jail 
while awaiting an initial appearance on a shoplifting charge. Because of his 
admitted escape, his probation was revoked for the first time on 
June 2, 
1988 and he was 
ordered jailed at the Sheridan 
County jail for 
ninety days. On July 28, 
1988, after 
fifty-seven days in the Sheridan 
County jail, the 
balance of Craig's ninety day jail term was suspended so Craig could be admitted 
to the Pine 
Ridge 
Hospital for 
alcohol dependency treatment. Craig was admitted to 
Pine 
Ridge 
Hospital on 
July 29, 
1988 and 
discharged thirty-nine days later on September 
5, 1988.

 

[¶3]  On March 6, 
1989, Craig's 
probation was revoked for the second time when he pled guilty to a separate 
offense of issuing forged checks. At that time, he was sent to the state 
penitentiary. After 199 days in the penitentiary, Craig's motion for sentence 
reduction was granted and his prison sentence was suspended. He was given yet 
another chance and placed on probation on September 
20, 1989.

 

[¶4]  On March 6, 
1990, Craig was 
once again arrested after violating his probation by leaving 
Wyoming without 
permission. On March 21, 
1990, the 
district court revoked Craig's probation for the third time. The district judge 
reinstated Craig's original three to five year sentence and ordered that Craig 
not receive credit for his previous time of incarceration.

 

DISCUSSION

 

[¶5]  In his appeal, Craig claims his 
incarceration time should be credited against his sentence. He argues that the 
district court's decision to reinstate his original sentence without crediting 
the time he already served violates pertinent case law regarding the 
constitutional requirement that all incarceration time be credited against a 
sentence. See Ramirez v. State, 800 P.2d 503 (Wyo. 1990); 
Prejean v. State, 794 P.2d 877 (Wyo. 1990); 
Yates v. State, 792 P.2d 187 (Wyo. 1990); 
Renfro v. State, 785 P.2d 491 (Wyo. 1990); and 
North 
Carolina v. Pearce, 
395 U.S. 711, 89 S. Ct. 2072, 23 L. Ed. 2d 656 (1969). We agree.

 

[¶6]  In Prejean, 794 P.2d  at 877, we held 
that an individual who was again "incarcerated following a violation of parole, 
[was] entitled to credit for time that he served as a residential inmate in a 
community correctional facility." Just as the individual is entitled to credit 
for time served in a community correctional facility, so too is an individual 
entitled to credit for time served in a county jail and in the state 
penitentiary. "In Renfro v. State, 785 P.2d 491 
(Wyo. 1990), 
this court held unequivocally that, when a sentence to a term of imprisonment is 
imposed, pre-sentence confinement must be credited against both the maximum term 
and the minimum term." Prejean, 794 P.2d  at 878. Although Renfro addresses 
entitlement of credit for pre-sentence confinement and Prejean addresses 
entitlement for credit for time served in a community correctional facility 
prior to reincarceration for a parole violation, Renfro and its progeny rest 
upon a much deeper foundation. Central to those cases which radiate from Renfro 
is the double jeopardy constraint that punishment already exacted for an offense 
must be credited to the incarceration time occasioned by that offense. 
Accordingly, the time Craig spent in custody for the offense of grand larceny 
must be credited against the maximum and minimum terms to his original three to 
five year sentence.

 

[¶7]  We understand Craig to have spent 270 
days in custody prior to the final reinstatement of his original sentence. The 
270 days are calculated by adding the fourteen days he was held in the 
Sheridan 
County jail 
before he was sentenced, fifty-seven days in the 
Sheridan 
County jail after 
his probation was revoked the first time, and 199 days in the state penitentiary 
after his probation was revoked the second time.2

 

[¶8]  We do not include in the 270 days those 
days Craig spent in the Pine 
Ridge 
Hospital. In 
Prejean, 794 P.2d  at 879, we indicated that in deciding whether time at a 
community correctional facility "counts" as time served when probation is 
revoked depends upon whether the defendant could be charged with escape from 
detention.3 In this case, Craig was at the 
Pine 
Ridge 
Hospital for 
treatment of his anti-social behavior caused by alcohol. He agreed to 
participate in an alcohol dependency treatment as a condition for his second 
chance at probation. Craig was not in custody at the 
Pine 
Ridge 
Hospital because he 
could not be charged with escape from official detention had he left the 
hospital. Because escape from detention would not lie, the time at the 
Pine 
Ridge 
Hospital does not 
count as time to be credited against his sentence.

 

CONCLUSION

 

[¶9]  The judgment of the district court is 
modified for release and parole consideration in order that 270 days be credited 
against the maximum and minimum terms of Craig's original three to five year 
sentence.

 

Footnotes

 

1 In agreement, we still wonder whether it will make much difference 
unless Craig undertakes a change in lifestyle from what this record 
demonstrates. He has previously been given more than the benefit of the 
doubt.

2 An excessive computation of credit in one of the interim sentences is 
not separately counted.

3 W.S. 6-5-201(a)(ii) provides that "`[o]fficial detention' does not 
include supervision on probation or parole or constraint incidental to release 
on bail."