ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT			ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE

Jeffrey A. Modisett				Monica Foster

Attorney General of Indiana		Indianapolis, Indiana

Greg Ullrich					Kevin McShane

Arthur Thaddeus Perry			Indianapolis, Indiana

Deputies Attorney General

Indianapolis, Indiana

IN THE

SUPREME COURT OF INDIANA

STATE OF INDIANA,				)

							)

	Appellant (Plaintiff Below),	)

							)

		v.					)  Cause No. 49S00-9802-DP-96

							)

KERRIE D. PRICE,				)

							)

	Appellee (Defendant Below).	)

APPEAL FROM THE MARION SUPERIOR COURT

The Honorable Ruth Reichard, Judge

Cause No. 49G06-9702-CF-28645

[Date]JuneJune 23, 1999

SHEPARD, Chief Justice.

	Kerrie Price committed a series of drug offenses, and the

State charged him with multiple counts eventually leading to

sentences that total eighty-eight years.  The State now alleges

that Price committed two murders while he was out on bail awaiting trial for these crimes.  Price argued to the trial court that a death penalty imposed for these offenses must be carried out after

he serves the eighty-eight-year sentence ordered earlier.

	The trial court agreed with Price that an execution, if

ordered, could only occur many decades in the future.  It

apparently also agreed with Price that such a delay would be cruel

and unusual punishment.  Accordingly, it dismissed the State's

request for the death penalty.  The court certified the dismissal

for interlocutory appeal, and we accepted it.

	Price has relied on a provision in the general sentencing

statutes:

If, after being arrested for one (1) crime, a person

commits another crime:

	(1) 	before the date the person is discharged from  	probation, parole, or a term of imprisonment imposed

	for the first crime; or

	(2)	while the person is released:

		(A) 	upon the person's own recognizance; or

		(B) 	on bond;

the terms of imprisonment for the crimes shall be served

consecutively, regardless of the order in which the

crimes are tried and sentences are imposed.

Ind. Code Ann. § 35-50-1-2(d) (West 1998).

Price notes that the General Assembly sometimes uses more specific

language in legislating about incarceration, like "a fixed term of fifty-five (55) years" for murder1 or a "minimum term of imprisonment" for parole eligibility.2  The use of the unadorned "term of imprisonment" in the consecutive sentencing law, he says,

implies a broad application of that law to all situations involving

incarceration.  A person sentenced to death, of course, is

"confined in the state prison until the date of his execution." 

Ind. Code Ann. § 35-38-6-4 (West 1998).

	The current version of Ind. Code § 35-50-1-2(d), as revised in

1997, is apparently the General Assembly's response to our

decisions about the limited nature of trial court authority to

order consecutive sentences conferred by earlier versions of the

statute.3  We perceive nothing in the genealogy of the revised section or in its language that suggests the result now urged by

Price.  A "term of imprisonment" is a penalty under which the

convict is sent to incarceration for some period (such as two years

or five to ten years) and then released after the period has

passed.  Execution is a penalty of a radically different sort.  It

features incarceration only while appellate processes persist and

does not contemplate a future release into society.

	Satisfied that the death penalty is not "a term of

incarceration" within the meaning of Ind. Code § 35-50-1-2(d), we

reverse the trial court and order reinstatement of the request for

the death penalty.

Dickson, Sullivan, Selby, and Boehm, JJ., concur.