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: ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE:

BERNICE A.N. CORLEY GREGORY F. ZOELLER

Indianapolis, Indiana Attorney General of Indiana

KATHERINE MODESITT COOPER

Deputy Attorney General

Indianapolis, Indiana

IN THE

COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA

JAY SLEET, )

)

Appellant-Defendant, )

)

vs. ) No. 49A02-1311-CR-997

)

STATE OF INDIANA, )

)

Appellee-Plaintiff. )

APPEAL FROM THE MARION SUPERIOR COURT

The Honorable Kurt M. Eisgruber, Judge

The Honorable Steve Rubick, Magistrate

Cause No. 49G01-1208-FC-57166

September 10, 2014

MEMORANDUM DECISION - NOT FOR PUBLICATION

PYLE, Judge
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE

Appellant/Defendant, Jay Sleet (“Sleet”), appeals his conviction for Class C felony 

battery1and the trial court’s refusal to award him credit for time served on pre-trial home 

detention. He argues that the evidence supporting his conviction is insufficient because it 

was based on the testimony of one witness, whom he claims was not credible. He also 

contends that the trial court abused its discretion by refusing to award him credit for his 

time served on pre-trial home detention because the trial court thought he had violated the 

terms of his home detention, and he claims that he had not. We affirm the trial court’s 

judgment because there was sufficient evidence to support Sleet’s conviction. We also 

affirm the trial court’s sentence because it was within the trial court’s discretion to refuse 

to award Sleet credit for his time served on pre-trial home detention. 

We affirm.

ISSUES

1. Whether there was sufficient evidence to support Sleet’s conviction for 

Class C felony battery.

2. Whether the trial court abused its discretion when it refused to award 

Sleet credit for time he served on pre-trial home detention.

FACTS

Sleet started dating Colette Lanter (“Lanter”) in October or November of 2011, 

and they were still dating in August of 2012. On August 17, 2012, Lanter got off of work

from her job in downtown Indianapolis around 10 or 11 p.m. Sleet met her at her work, 

 

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IND. CODE § 35-42-2-1(a)(3) (2012). 
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and they walked to a bar downtown. At the time, Lanter could tell that Sleet was 

intoxicated and “louder than usual.” (Tr. 48). 

When they arrived at the bar, Lanter ordered a couple of drinks for them and then 

received a text from her roommate, Lavon Tomlin (“Tomlin”). Tomlin’s car was out of 

gas, and he asked Lanter if he could borrow a few dollars. Lanter responded that she was 

about to go to the Pub, another bar downtown, and that Tomlin could meet her there and 

pick up some money. Sleet asked Lanter who she was texting and then, when Lanter told 

him, Sleet got upset and spilled Lanter’s drink in her lap. In response, Lanter told Sleet 

that she would see him later and left to go to the Pub. Sleet followed her there.

When Lanter and Sleet arrived at the Pub, Chris Brown (“Brown”), a bartender at 

the Pub and former co-worker of Lanter’s, noticed that they “were bickering—kind of 

arguing as they came in.” (Tr. 67). However, it was around midnight, which was when 

Brown’s shift ended, so he did not serve them any drinks. Dustin Joe Donovan

(“Donovan”), another bartender at the Pub, served Lanter and Sleet drinks and noticed 

that they were not interacting much and “seemed to not be [] getting along great at the 

time . . . .” (Tr. 60). They were arguing because Sleet “kept repeatin[g himself],” and 

Lanter “was getting[g] irritated.” (Tr. 51). As a result, Lanter went outside to talk to 

some of her friends. Sleet followed her and continued arguing, so Lanter went back 

inside and started to take shots with a friend. 

Later, Lanter again went outside to talk to some friends. However, she did not 

remember anything after that point until she woke up in a hospital. Brown was also 

outside with Tomlin and a few of Lanter’s other friends. Brown was talking to Tomlin 
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when he heard Lanter and Sleet arguing. Then, he heard “what was either a smack or a 

hit” that sounded like “skin hitting skin.” (Tr. 69). He looked up and saw that Sleet had 

Lanter “by the back of the neck and slammed her into the ground a couple of times.” (Tr. 

69). All of the friends reacted, and several of the friends went to help Lanter, although no 

one else remembered seeing how Lanter got injured. Tomlin restrained Sleet while 

Brown ran inside, told Donovan to call 9-1-1, and grabbed towels for Lanter, who was 

bleeding profusely. Lanter had a gash on her head, and there was a “massive puddle” of 

blood under her. (Tr. 71). 

Police officer Christopher Faulds (“Officer Faulds”) with the Indianapolis 

Metropolitan Police Department responded to the scene and observed that Lanter “had 

some blood on her clothes and some cuts to her face.” (Tr. 38). He tried to get a 

response from her, but she was “not very lucid.” (Tr. 38). Sleet was also unresponsive 

and unwilling to speak. However, the limited number of words he spoke to Officer 

Faulds were slurred. He was also unsteady on his feet, had a strong odor of an alcoholic 

beverage on him, and had bloodshot eyes. As a result, Officer Faulds arrested him for 

public intoxication. He later also arrested Sleet for disorderly conduct and battery.

Subsequently, on August 22, 2012, the State charged Sleet with Class C felony 

battery. On August 31, 2012, the trial court released Sleet to pre-trial home detention. 

Sleet waived his right to a jury trial, and the trial court held a bench trial on October 2, 

2013. At the trial, Brown testified that he had seen Sleet slam Lanter’s head into the 

ground a couple of times. He also testified that he did not drink any alcohol between 

midnight, when he officially ended his shift, and approximately 2:30 a.m., when Lanter’s 
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injuries occurred. At the conclusion of the trial, the trial court found Sleet guilty as 

charged. 

On October 22, 2013, the trial court held a sentencing hearing and sentenced Sleet 

to four (4) years, with two (2) years executed at the Department of Correction. The trial 

court also credited Sleet with forty-one days served prior to sentencing. However, the 

trial court refused to credit Sleet for time he served on home detention before trial. Its 

reasoning was that Sleet had violated his home detention. Sleet asserted that he had not 

violated his home detention but had actually had a mechanical issue with the box that 

Community Corrections gave him. Sleet claimed that he had brought the problem to 

Community Corrections’ attention and had sorted it out. In response, the trial court said 

it would e-mail Community Corrections and consider awarding Sleet credit for his pretrial home detention time if Community Corrections confirmed his story. Sleet now 

appeals. We will provide additional information as necessary.

DECISION

On appeal, Sleet argues that there was insufficient evidence to support his 

conviction for battery and also that the trial court should have credited him with time he 

served on pre-trial home detention. We will address each of these issues in turn.

1. Sufficiency of the Evidence

The standard of review for sufficiency of the evidence claims is that this Court 

should reverse a conviction only when reasonable persons would not be able to form 

inferences as to each material element of the offense. Perez v. State, 872 N.E.2d 208, 

212-13 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007), trans. denied. We do not reweigh evidence or judge the 
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credibility of witnesses. Id. at 213. In addition, we only consider the evidence most 

favorable to the verdict and the reasonable inferences stemming from that evidence. Id. 

In order to convict Sleet of battery, the State was required to prove beyond a 

reasonable doubt that he “knowingly or intentionally touch[ed] another person in a rude, 

insolent or angry manner” that “result[ed] in serious bodily injury.” I.C. § 35-42-2-

1(a)(3) (2012). A person engages in conduct “knowingly” if, when he engages in the 

conduct, he is aware of a high probability that he is doing so. I.C. § 35-41-2-2.

Sleet’s claims there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction because 

Brown’s testimony that Sleet grabbed Lanter “by the back of the neck and slammed her 

into the ground a couple of times” was not credible. (Tr. 69). Specifically, he argues that 

it was “highly improbable” that Brown hung out at the bar for three hours after his shift 

ended without drinking. (Sleet’s Br. 12). He also claims that Brown’s testimony is not 

credible because he did not tell Officer Faulds what he had witnessed on the night in 

question. 

We are not persuaded by Sleet’s arguments because both are invitations to judge 

the credibility of a witness, which we will not do. See Perez, 872 N.E.2d at 213. 

Moreover, Sleet does not cite to anywhere in the transcript where Officer Faulds stated 

that Brown did not tell him what he had witnessed. To the contrary, Officer Faulds 

testified that he “spoke to several of the witnesses that were also gathered in the parking 

lot and [] was able to get an idea of what had occurred.” (Tr. 39). Therefore, since 

Brown’s testimony provided evidence to prove that Sleet committed battery and he does 
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not otherwise dispute the sufficiency of the evidence, we conclude that there was 

sufficient evidence to support his conviction.

2. Credit Time

Next, Sleet contends that he served 390 days on pre-trial home detention and that 

the trial court abused its discretion when it refused to award him credit for serving this 

time. He claims that the trial court intended to grant him credit if Community 

Corrections confirmed that he had not violated the terms of his home detention. In 

addition, he argues that his counsel’s argument that the alleged violation was merely an 

equipment malfunction was evidence in and of itself that there was not a violation. Sleet 

requests us to remand this issue to the trial court to determine whether there was a 

violation and award him credit time if there was not.

It is well-established that because pre-sentence jail time credit is a matter of 

statutory right, trial courts generally do not have discretion in awarding or denying such 

credit. Molden v. State, 750 N.E.2d 448, 449 (Ind. Ct. App. 2001). However, because 

credit for pre-trial home detention is not a statutory right, an award of credit for time 

served on pre-trial home detention is within the discretion of the trial court and will be 

reversed only upon a showing of an abuse of that discretion. Id. The reasoning behind 

this rule is that “time spent in home detention is not identical to time spent in jail or 

prison.” Id. at 451 (discussing Capes v. State, 615 N.E.2d 450 (Ind. Ct. App. 1993)). 

Instead, “only when a person has been confined in a prison, county jail, or any facility 

which imposes substantially similar restrictions upon personal liberty is a person entitled 

to credit against his sentence for time served prior to trial.” Id. We will find that a trial 
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court has abused its discretion only when its 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.” Anglemyer v. State, 868 N.E.2d 482, 490 (Ind. 

2007), clarified on reh’g, 875 N.E.2d 218. 

Here, there is evidence in the record that Sleet did violate the conditions of his 

home detention. The Chronological Case Summary indicates that he violated his 

detention on July 18, 2013. Sleet relies entirely on his counsel’s self-serving claims that 

he did not violate his detention as proof of his compliance.

Regardless of whether a violation occurred, though, the trial court did not, as Sleet 

contends, agree to award him credit time if Community Corrections confirmed his story. 

Instead, the trial court told Sleet that it would “consider” awarding him time. (Tr. 108). 

Based on the trial court’s silence in the record after the sentencing hearing, we must 

conclude that the trial court decided not to award Sleet time. This decision was within its 

discretion, and Sleet has not provided us with any evidence to support his argument that 

the trial court abused its discretion. As stated above, a person is entitled to credit only 

when he or she has been confined to “a prison, county jail, or any facility which imposes 

substantially similar restrictions upon personal liberty.” Molden, 750 N.E.2d at 451. 

Sleet has not provided any evidence that the terms of his home detention imposed 

restrictions upon his personal liberty substantially similar to a prison. Accordingly, we 

conclude that the trial court’s decision not to award him credit for his time served on 

home detention was not against the logic and effect of the facts and circumstances before 

it and, thus, was not an abuse of discretion.
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Affirmed.

NAJAM, J., and BAILEY, J., concur.