Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 84A01-1606-CR-1309 | January 30, 2017 Page 1 of 6

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT

Cara Schaefer Wieneke

Wieneke Law Office LLC

Brooklyn, Indiana

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE

Curtis T. Hill, Jr.

Attorney General of Indiana

Richard C. Webster

Deputy Attorney General

Indianapolis, Indiana

IN THE

COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA

Richard D. Shepard,

Appellant-Defendant,

v.

State of Indiana,

Appellee-Plaintiff.

January 30, 2017

Court of Appeals Case No.

84A01-1606-CR-1309

Appeal from the Vigo Superior 

Court.

The Honorable David R. Bolk, 

Judge.

Cause No. 84D03-1202-FB-468

Sharpnack, Senior Judge

Statement of the Case

[1] Richard D. Shepard appeals the sentence the trial court imposed after revoking 

his placement in a county community corrections program. We affirm.
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Issue

[2] Shepard raises one issue, which we restate as: Whether the trial court erred in 

denying Shepard good time credit for days served in community corrections.

Facts and Procedural History

[3] Shepard pleaded guilty to dealing in cocaine, a Class B felony. On May 16, 

2013, the trial court imposed a sentence of eleven years. On July 30, 2015, 

Shepard filed a motion for sentence modification. The State did not object. On 

October 1, 2015, the trial court granted Shepard’s motion, ordering him to serve 

his sentence on work release through the Vigo County Community Corrections 

program.

[4] Shepard was released from the Department of Correction and began serving his 

sentence through the community corrections program. He subsequently 

committed several violations of the program’s rules, including several incidents 

where he left the facility, allegedly to go to work, but was not needed at work 

on those days and did not satisfactorily account for his time. As a result, 

program officials held several administrative hearings and repeatedly took away 

portions of Shepard’s earned credit time as punishment, ultimately depriving 

him of a total of 225 days.

[5] On April 20, 2016, the State filed a motion to revoke Shepard’s probation and 

placement in community corrections. The trial court held an evidentiary 

hearing and concluded that Shepard had violated the conditions of probation. 
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The court ordered Shepard to serve the balance of his sentence in the 

Department of Correction.

[6] In the course of calculating Shepard’s credit time, the court noted that Shepard 

was entitled to credit for 190 days served at the work release center from 

October 15, 2015 through April 21, 2016. The court further noted Shepard 

“lost earned credit time of two hundred twenty-five (225) days while at the 

Work Release Center.” Appellant’s App. p. 243. As a result, the court’s 

abstract of judgment reflects an accrued time credit of 190 days, but zero days 

of good time credit, for days served on work release. This appeal followed.

Discussion and Decision

[7] Shepard does not challenge the trial court’s revocation of his probation or the 

court’s determination that he should serve the balance of his suspended 

sentence. Rather, Shepard argues the trial court erred by denying him 190 days 

of good time credit for the days he served in the community corrections 

program. The State responds that the trial court properly excluded good time 

credit from Shepard’s sentence because he repeatedly violated the program’s 

rules and the program, not the court, deprived him of 225 days for those 

violations.1

 

1 The State also argues that Shepard waived this claim by failing to object at the sentencing hearing. We 

disagree and choose to address Shepard’s claim on the merits.
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[8] Offenders who are placed in a community corrections program earn credit time 

similar to offenders who are housed in the Department of Correction. Ind. 

Code § 35-38-2.6-6(c) (2015). In general, credit time is a matter of statutory 

right. Senn v. State, 766 N.E.2d 1190, 1201 (Ind. Ct. App. 2002). Nevertheless, 

“A person who is placed in a community corrections program under this 

chapter may be deprived of earned good time credit as provided under rules 

adopted by the department of correction under IC 4-22-2.” Ind. Code § 35-38-

2.6-6(d). Furthermore, the Department of Correction may also take away 

credit time from a person serving a sentence in a community corrections 

program. See Ind. Code §§ 11-11-5-1 (2010), 11-11-5-3 (2015).

[9] Shepard argues that the Vigo County Community Corrections program lacked 

the authority to revoke his good time credit. We disagree. In Indiana, 

community corrections programs may be managed by counties as well as the 

Department of Correction. Ind. Code § 35-38-2.6-2 (1994). Further, Indiana 

Code section 35-38-2.6-6 provides that a person’s good time credit may only be 

taken away in compliance with rules adopted by the Department of Correction, 

but it does not follow that only the Department, and not local community 

corrections programs, may take away good time credit.

[10] In addition, the record does not indicate that the Vigo County Community 

Corrections Program failed to comply with procedures designed to provide due 

process. To the contrary, at the evidentiary hearing on the State’s petition to 
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revoke, a case manager for the community corrections program testified that 

Shepard received an administrative evidentiary hearing each time the program 

claimed he had violated the rules and sought to take away good time credit. In 

any event, it is too late for Shepard to challenge the program’s disciplinary 

decisions, because any appeals should have occurred when the decisions were 

made to revoke portions of his good time credit.

[11] The trial court, in refusing to give Shepard good time credit for his incarceration 

in the community corrections program, merely took account of the program’s 

disciplinary decisions and gave them effect in the sentencing order. Shepard 

cites Pharr v. State, 2 N.E.3d 10 (Ind. Ct. App. 2013), to claim that the trial 

court’s decision was inappropriate, but that case is distinguishable. In Pharr, 

the sentencing court noted the defendant had repeatedly violated the terms of 

her placement in a community corrections program and, independent of any 

decision by the program, ordered that she would not receive good time credit 

for a portion of the time she served in community corrections. A panel of this 

Court determined that only the Department of Correction, not the trial court, 

was authorized to deprive a defendant of credit time earned while in a 

community corrections program, and reversed the trial court. See id. at 12 

(discussing Campbell v. State, 714 N.E.2d 678 (Ind. Ct. App. 1999) (overruled in 

part on other grounds by Robinson v. State, 805 N.E.2d 783 (Ind. 2004)). 
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[12] In the current case, the trial court did not choose to deprive Shepard of good 

credit time as a sua sponte sentencing consideration but instead acknowledged 

the community correction program’s disciplinary decisions and incorporated 

them into the final judgment. Requiring the trial court to ignore the program’s 

deprivation of Shepard’s credit time for his violations of the rules would have 

effectively nullified the program’s disciplinary decisions. Pharr is 

distinguishable and does not compel reversal of the trial court’s decision.

Conclusion

[13] For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

[14] Affirmed.

Bailey, J., and Bradford, J., concur.