Court of Appeals of Indiana | Memorandum Decision 20A03-1409-CR-338 | April 17, 2015 Page 1 of 7

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), this 

Memorandum Decision shall not be regarded as 

precedent or cited before any court except for the 

purpose of establishing the defense of res judicata, 

collateral estoppel, or the law of the case.

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT

Donald R. Shuler

Barkes Kolbus Rife & Shuler, LLP

Goshen, Indiana

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE

Gregory F. Zoeller

Attorney General of Indiana

Richard C. Webster

Deputy Attorney General

Indianapolis, Indiana

I N T H E

COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA

Randolf S. Sargent,

Appellant-Defendant,

v.

State of Indiana,

Appellee-Plaintiff.

April 17, 2015

Court of Appeals Cause No.

20A03-1409-CR-338

Appeal from the Elkhart Circuit

Court

Cause No. 20C01-1307-FA-39

The Honorable Terry C. 

Shewmaker, Judge

Barnes, Judge.
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Case Summary

[1] Randolf Sargent appeals his thirty-year sentence for one count of Class A felony 

attempted dealing in methamphetamine. We affirm.

Issue

[2] The sole issue before us is whether Sargent’s sentence is inappropriate.

Facts

[3] On July 28, 2013, an Elkhart Police Department officer responded to a report of 

an explosion and possible fire inside of an apartment. When the officer arrived 

on the scene and entered the apartment, there was a strong chemical smell and 

a lot of smoke. There was no fire, but there were fire marks on the kitchen wall. 

After being told that Sargent lived in the apartment, the officer went to the fire 

escape and saw him speeding away from the parking lot. Sargent’s apartment 

was located in a building with fifteen other units.

[4] Police found Sargent later that evening and transported him to a hospital 

because he was having difficulty breathing. Sargent admitted to police that he 

had been attempting to manufacture methamphetamine when a soda bottle 

failed and started a fire, which he put out by throwing the bottle in a sink and 

covering it with flour. Sargent also stated that he primarily cooked 

methamphetamine for his own use, but he would sometimes exchange it for 

pseudoephedrine pills. He had been cooking methamphetamine for a few 

months before this incident.
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[5] The State charged Sargent with one count of Class A felony attempted dealing 

in methamphetamine. The charge was elevated from a Class B to a Class A 

felony because the offense allegedly took place within 1,000 feet of a family 

housing complex. Sargent pled guilty to the offense without a plea bargain. 

[6] While jailed after being arrested and prior to sentencing, Sargent participated in 

several religious and addiction counseling programs. Sargent had abused 

marijuana and methamphetamine at various times in his life. His only prior 

criminal history consisted of one 1996 conviction for Class C misdemeanor 

operating a vehicle without insurance. 

[7] After Sargent’s sentencing hearing, the trial court found as mitigating Sargent’s 

acceptance of responsibility, his addiction issues, and statements of support 

from family members and a program instructor. As aggravating, the trial court 

noted Sargent’s criminal conviction and his frequent use of illegal drugs in the 

past, the fact that the fire endangered a number of other people, and the fact 

that he was forty-nine years old and “old enough to know better.” App. p. 33. 

The trial court imposed a sentence of thirty years, with five years suspended to 

probation. Sargent now appeals.

Analysis

[8] Sargent was convicted under the version of Indiana Code Section 35-48-4-1.1 

that was in effect at the time he committed the offense. That version of the 

statute made manufacturing methamphetamine within 1,000 feet of a family 

housing complex a Class A felony, which is punishable by a term of twenty to 
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fifty years, with an advisory term of thirty years.1 See Ind. Code § 35-50-2-4(a). 

Sargent contends his sentence is inappropriate under Indiana Appellate Rule 

7(B) in light of his character and the nature of the offense. See Anglemyer v. 

State, 868 N.E.2d 482, 491 (Ind. 2007). Although Rule 7(B) does not require us 

to be “extremely” deferential to a trial court’s sentencing decision, we still must 

give due consideration to that decision. Rutherford v. State, 866 N.E.2d 867, 873 

(Ind. Ct. App. 2007). We also understand and recognize the unique perspective 

a trial court brings to its sentencing decisions. Id. “Additionally, a defendant 

bears the burden of persuading the appellate court that his or her sentence is 

inappropriate.” Id.

[9] The principal role of Rule 7(B) review “should be to attempt to leaven the 

outliers, and identify some guiding principles for trial courts and those charged 

with improvement of the sentencing statutes, but not to achieve a perceived 

‘correct’ result in each case.” Cardwell v. State, 895 N.E.2d 1219, 1225 (Ind. 

2008). We “should focus on the forest—the aggregate sentence—rather than 

the trees—consecutive or concurrent, number of counts, or length of the 

 

1

Prior to sentencing, the trial court denied Sargent’s request to be sentenced under the new criminal statutes 

that went into effect on July 1, 2014. Under the new statutes, dealing in methamphetamine weighing less 

than one gram by manufacturing is a Level 4 felony, and there is no longer an enhancement based on 

proximity to a family housing complex. See Ind. Code §§ 35-48-4-1.1; 35-48-1-16.5(5) (specifying that dealing 

in methamphetamine of less than one gram by manufacturing is a Level 5 felony unless an “enhancing 

circumstance” applies, which includes manufacturing, in which case the offense is a Level 4 felony). The 

sentencing range for a Level 4 felony is two to twelve years, with an advisory sentence of six years. See I.C. § 

35-50-2-5.5. In passing the new criminal statutes, the legislature made it very clear that they only applied to 

offenses committed on or after July 1, 2014, and that the doctrine of amelioration should not apply. See I.C. 

§ 1-1-5.1-21. Sargent does not raise this issue on appeal.
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sentence on any individual count.” Id. Whether a sentence is inappropriate 

ultimately turns on the culpability of the defendant, the severity of the crime, 

the damage done to others, and myriad other factors that come to light in a 

given case. Id. at 1224. When reviewing the appropriateness of a sentence 

under Rule 7(B), we may consider all aspects of the penal consequences 

imposed by the trial court in sentencing the defendant, including whether a 

portion of the sentence was suspended. Davidson v. State, 926 N.E.2d 1023, 

1025 (Ind. 2010).

[10] Regarding Sargent’s character, there is nothing particularly negative to note. 

His only criminal conviction from nearly two decades ago was for a Class C 

misdemeanor driving offense, which is not very relevant to the current Class A 

felony methamphetamine conviction. See Wooley v. State, 716 N.E.2d 919, 929 

(Ind. 1999). Sargent also pled guilty without the benefit of a plea agreement or 

dismissal of any other charges, which demonstrates acceptance of responsibility 

for his crime. See Hope v. State, 834 N.E.2d 713, 718-19 (Ind. Ct. App. 2005). 

Sargent did admit to using marijuana and methamphetamine on and off in the 

past, which would indicate prior uncharged criminal behavior by him. 

However, the trial court also noted that Sargent appeared to have a drug 

addiction problem, which he had begun addressing while in jail. See Parks v. 

State, 22 N.E.3d 552, 554 (Ind. 2014) (reducing sentence for dealing in 

methamphetamine of defendant who “acknowledged that his drug addiction 

has continually caused problems in his life . . . .”).
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[11] As for the nature of the offense, we disagree with Sargent that this was a “run of 

the mill” offense. Appellant’s Br. p. 9. We note that all that was required to 

convict Sargent of the Class A felony offense was that he manufactured 

methamphetamine within 1,000 feet of a family housing complex. Sargent 

went well beyond this bare minimum when he attempted to cook 

methamphetamine inside of a family housing complex with fifteen other units in 

it and then proceeded to seriously endanger the other persons living in the 

complex by starting a fire. This was precisely the type of danger that the family 

housing complex enhancement was intended to protect against. We find the 

nature of the offense to be egregious.

[12] We note that in Parks, our supreme court recently reduced a sentence for Class 

A felony dealing in methamphetamine by manufacturing within 1,000 feet of a 

family housing complex. As here, the manufacturing apparently took place in 

an apartment building, and while a chemical spill occurred, there was no fire or 

explosion. In that case, the defendant, Parks, had received a sentence of forty 

years, with twenty-six years executed in the Department of Correction, four 

years executed through community corrections, and ten years suspended to 

probation. After outlining Parks’s criminal history, addiction issues, 

expressions of regret, cooperation with law enforcement, and family support, 

our supreme court decided that a sentence revision was warranted. It reduced 

the sentence to a total of thirty years, with twenty years executed at the 

Department of Correction, two years executed through community corrections, 

and eight years suspended to probation. Parks, 22 N.E.3d at 555-56.
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[13] Sargent’s sentence of the advisory thirty years, with five years suspended to 

probation and twenty-five years executed in the Department of Correction, is 

comparable to the revised sentence received by Parks, with only a slight 

difference in executed time. Sargent pled guilty, unlike Parks, and he also has 

less of a criminal history than Parks. However, both Sargent and Parks had 

drug addiction issues that contributed to their crimes. Sargent also caused an 

explosion and fire in the middle of an apartment building, while Parks did not. 

No two defendants and no two crimes are exactly identical. However, we 

recognize that “‘a respectable legal system attempts to impose similar sentences 

on perpetrators committing the same acts who have the same backgrounds.’” 

Corbally v. State, 5 N.E.3d 463, 472 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014) (quoting Serino v. State, 

798 N.E.2d 852, 854 (Ind. 2003)). We believe that is precisely the case when 

we look at Sargent’s and Parks’s crimes and backgrounds and the sentences 

each received. As such, we cannot say that Sargent’s sentence is inappropriate.

Conclusion

[14] Sargent’s sentence is not inappropriate. We affirm.

[15] Affirmed. 

May, J., and Pyle, J., concur.