Case Title: Steven Hollin v. State of Indiana

Citation: 

Docket Number: 69S01-0705-CR-188

State: indiana

Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Date: 2007-12-05T00:00:00Z

Document:
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT  
 
 
 
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE 
Leanna Weissmann 
 
 
 
 
 
Steve Carter 
Lawrenceburg, Indiana 
 
 
 
 
 
Attorney General of Indiana 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
J.T. Whitehead 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Deputy Attorney General 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
 
 
______________________________________________________________________________ 
 
In the 
Indiana Supreme Court  
_________________________________ 
 
No. 69S01-0705-CR-188 
 
STEVEN HOLLIN, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appellant (Defendant below), 
 
v. 
 
STATE OF INDIANA, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appellee (Plaintiff below). 
_________________________________ 
 
Appeal from the Ripley Circuit Court, No. 69C01-0511-FB-011 
The Honorable Carl Taul, Judge 
_________________________________ 
 
On Petition To Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 69A01-0609-CR-401 
_________________________________ 
 
 
 
December 5, 2007 
 
 
 
Rucker, Justice. 
 
 
 
The defendant was convicted of conspiracy to commit burglary, a Class B felony, and 
found to be a habitual offender.  The trial court sentenced him to twenty years for the conspiracy 
offense, enhanced by twenty years for the habitual offender adjudication.  Under our 
constitutional authority we revise the sentence to a total aggregate term of twenty years. 
 
Facts and Procedural History 
 
 
Eighteen-year-old Steven R. Hollin was released from jail on November 1, 2005.  Less 
than a week later, he and Nathan Vogel (“Vogel”) devised a plan to burglarize homes in a rural 
portion of Ripley County, Indiana.  They planned to knock upon doors to locate unoccupied 
homes, from which they would steal money.  On the morning of November 8, 2005, the two men 
ventured out by foot along a road in Ripley County.  The first residence they approached was 
occupied.  A woman answered the door, and to avoid suspicion Hollin and Vogel asked for 
directions to Greensburg, Indiana.  They then left and continued their search for an unoccupied 
house.  The next home they reached appeared to be empty.  To be certain, Hollin and Vogel 
knocked upon both the front and back doors before entering the garage and proceeding into the 
kitchen.  While Hollin remained in the kitchen, Vogel entered a bedroom.  Vogel took a camera 
bag containing approximately six hundred dollars.  The two then left the home, walking back 
toward town.  At this point, the woman who had provided directions to Greensburg noticed them 
and called police to report this suspicious activity. 
 
 
Batesville Police Department Lieutenant Jeff Thielking responded to the call and 
recognized Hollin.  He became suspicious about the possibility of criminal activity because, 
although it was approximately sixty-six degrees outside, Vogel wore a heavy winter coat and 
appeared to be hiding something inside of it.  Vogel asserted that their car had broken down 
along the road, but Lieutenant Thielking had not seen any disabled vehicles in the vicinity.  
Lieutenant Thielking also knew of several recent burglaries in the area.  Noting the name of Al 
Wuestefeld on the camera bag Vogel was carrying, Lieutenant Thielking arrested both men.  A 
telephone call to the Wuestefeld residence confirmed that it had been burgled.  Hollin and Vogel 
subsequently confessed. 
 
 
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The State charged Hollin with burglary of a dwelling, a Class B felony, Ind. Code § 35-
43-2-1(1)(B)(i), theft as a Class D felony, I.C. § 35-43-4-2(a), and being a habitual offender, I.C. 
§ 35-50-2-8.  The State later amended the charging information to dismiss the burglary charge 
and replaced the theft charge with conspiracy to commit burglary as a Class B felony.  I.C. § 35-
43-2-1(1)(B)(i); I.C. § 35-41-5-2(a).  A jury convicted Hollin of conspiracy to commit burglary 
and adjudged him a habitual offender.  After conducting a sentencing hearing, the trial court 
found one aggravating factor – Hollin’s criminal history – and one mitigating factor – his young 
age.  The court then sentenced him to the maximum term of twenty years for the conspiracy 
conviction, enhanced by twenty years for the habitual offender adjudication. 
 
 
Hollin appealed, raising the following issues: (1) whether it was fundamental error for the 
trial court to admit evidence of his criminal history and (2) whether the trial court properly 
sentenced him.  In an unpublished memorandum decision, the Court of Appeals rejected these 
arguments and affirmed the judgment of the trial court.  Hollin v. State, No. 69A01-0609-CR-
401 (Ind. Ct. App. Mar. 29, 2007).  Having previously granted transfer, we now summarily 
affirm the Court of Appeals’ disposition of the first issue listed above.  Ind. Appellate Rule 
58(A)(2).  We address the remaining issue and also exercise our review and revise authority.   
 
Discussion 
 
Hollin asserts that the trial court improperly sentenced him to forty years in the 
Department of Correction.  Specifically he contends (1) the trial court should have taken into 
account that he received his General Education Diploma (“GED”) while in jail, (2) the trial court 
failed to properly weigh his youth as a mitigating factor, and (3) the trial court erred in relying on 
his criminal history to support the maximum sentence for conspiracy because this factor 
provided the basis for the habitual offender determination.   
 
We recently determined that when a trial court imposes a sentence “[t]he trial court must 
enter a statement including reasonably detailed reasons or circumstances for imposing [that] 
particular sentence.”  Anglemyer v. State, 868 N.E.2d 482, 491 (Ind. 2007).  We continue to 
review those reasons and the omission of any reasons arguably supported by the record for abuse 
 
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of discretion.  Id.  An abuse of discretion occurs if the decision is “clearly against the logic and 
effect of the facts and circumstances before the court, or the reasonable, probable, and actual 
deductions to be drawn therefrom.”  K.S. v. State, 849 N.E.2d 538, 544 (Ind. 2006) (citation 
omitted).  However, under the 2005 amended sentencing statute, the weights afforded to different 
factors are no longer reviewable on appeal for abuse of discretion.  Anglemyer, 868 N.E.2d at 
491.   
 
Hollin’s argument regarding his GED is precluded from appellate review.  Hollin 
contends that the trial court should have recognized his GED – which he acquired while 
incarcerated for this offense – as a mitigating circumstance.  Although Hollin did testify during 
his sentencing hearing that he received his GED, Tr. at 347, he did not argue to the sentencing 
court that his GED should be considered in mitigation.  “If the defendant does not advance a 
factor to be mitigating at sentencing, this Court will presume that the factor is not significant and 
the defendant is precluded from advancing it as a mitigating circumstance for the first time on 
appeal.”  Spears v. State, 735 N.E.2d 1161, 1167 (Ind. 2000) (citations omitted); see also 
Sherwood v. State, 702 N.E.2d 694, 700 (Ind. 1998) (finding the trial court erred where evidence 
of an overlooked mitigating circumstance was both clearly presented and argued to the trial 
court).  The argument is thus waived.  As for the trial court’s alleged abuse of discretion in 
failing to properly weigh Hollin’s youth as a mitigating factor, this issue is also precluded from 
review.  “The relative weight or value assignable to reasons properly found . . . is not subject to 
review for abuse.”  Anglemyer, 868 N.E.2d at 491.   
 
Hollin’s claim of trial court error in relying on the same criminal history to enhance his 
conspiracy conviction and to support the habitual offender adjudication must fail.  This Court has 
long held 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.  See Buchanan v. 
State, 699 N.E.2d 655, 657 (Ind. 1998); Jones v. State, 600 N.E.2d 544, 548 (Ind. 1992); Criss v. 
State, 512 N.E.2d 858, 860 (Ind. 1987).    
 
Hollin received the maximum possible penalty for a Class B felony conviction: twenty 
years.  I.C. § 35-50-2-5.  Ten years is the advisory sentence for this offense.  Id.  The trial court 
 
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imposed an additional twenty years based upon Hollin’s habitual offender adjudication.  It was 
within the trial court’s discretion to impose a ten- to thirty-year habitual offender enhancement.  
I.C. § 35-50-2-8(h).  There is no question that the trial court properly exercised its discretion in 
this case.  Nonetheless, “[a]lthough a trial court may have acted within its lawful discretion in 
determining a sentence, Article VII, Sections 4 and 6 of the Indiana Constitution ‘authorize[] 
independent appellate review and revision of a sentence imposed by the trial court.’”  
Anglemyer, 868 N.E.2d at 491 (quoting Childress v. State, 848 N.E.2d 1073, 1080 (Ind. 2006)).  
Our appellate authority is implemented through Indiana Appellate Rule 7(B), which allows us to 
“revise a sentence authorized by statute if, after due consideration of the trial court’s decision, 
the Court finds that the sentence is inappropriate in light of the nature of the offense and the 
character of the offender.” 
 
As for the nature of the offense, we observe that no one was home at the time of the 
burglary and apparently neither Hollin nor Vogel was armed.  “These facts together decreased 
the likelihood of violence.”  Frye v. State, 837 N.E.2d 1012, 1014 (Ind. 2005).  In Frye, the 
defendant’s fifteen-year sentence for burglary was enhanced by twenty-five years for his 
adjudication as a habitual offender, for a total of forty years.  We revised to an aggregate of 
twenty-five years, noting the defendant was not armed, the victim was not at home, and the 
pecuniary loss was marginal.  Id. at 1014-15.  As for Hollin’s character, we acknowledge that 
even at the age of eighteen, Hollin has an extended criminal history.  However most are juvenile 
offenses.  And with the exception of cruelty to an animal – committed as a juvenile – none of his 
offenses involved crimes of violence.  Rather they were primarily auto theft and related offenses.  
App. at 106-07. 
 
We do not condone Hollin’s past or current violations of the law.  Still, we cannot 
conclude that Hollin’s numerous transgressions necessarily “demonstrate a character of such 
recalcitrance or depravity” that they justify a forty-year sentence.  Frye, 837 N.E.2d at 1015.  We 
therefore revise Hollin’s sentence for burglary to the presumptive term of ten years for a Class B 
felony.  For the habitual offender enhancement, we impose an additional ten years for a total 
aggregate term of twenty years.  
 
 
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Conclusion 
 
 
We remand this cause to the trial court with instructions to enter a sentence of ten years 
for conspiracy to commit burglary as a Class B felony, enhanced by ten years for the habitual 
offender adjudication.  
 
Shepard, C.J., and Sullivan and Boehm, JJ., concur. 
Dickson, J., concurs and dissents with separate opinion. 
Dickson, Justice, concurring and dissenting. 
 
 
I dissent as to the revision of the sentence selected by the trial court.  As to the remainder 
of the Court's opinion, I concur.   
 
Notwithstanding our duty under Indiana Appellate Rule 7(B) to give due consideration to 
the trial court's sentencing decision, the Court today reduces by one half the sentence determined 
by the trial court and which was unanimously affirmed by a panel of the Court of Appeals.  In 
matters of criminal sentencing, Rule 7(B) "places central focus on the role of the trial judge."  
Serino v. State, 798 N.E.2d 852, 856 (Ind. 2003).  Trial judges, not appellate judges, are in a far 
superior position to make sound sentencing decisions that are appropriate to the offender and the 
offense. Given an appellate tribunal's limited opportunity to fully perceive and appreciate the 
totality of the circumstances personally perceived by the trial judge at trial and sentencing, the 
“due consideration of the trial court's decision” required by Rule 7(B) should restrain appellate 
revision of sentences to only extremely rare, exceptional cases.  See Ind. Appellate Rule 7(B). 
 
Furthermore, the frequent appellate revision of criminal sentences may induce and foster 
reliance upon such review for ultimate sentencing evaluations and thus serve as a disincentive to 
the cautious and measured fashioning of sentences by trial judges.  Restrained decisions are best 
made by a trial judge with the gravity that results from knowing that the judge's sentencing 
decisions are essentially final.    
 
Appellate sentence modifications should be extraordinary events that almost never occur. 
The trial court's decision is not clearly inappropriate in light of the nature of the offense and the 
character of the offender.  Appellate intervention is unwarranted.  I would affirm the trial court.