Title: Donna K. Stites v. State of Indiana
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 65S01-0409-PC-433
State: Indiana
Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court
Date: June 23, 2005

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT  
 
 
 
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE 
Susan K. Carpenter 
 
 
 
 
 
Steve Carter 
Public Defender of Indiana 
 
 
 
 
Attorney General of Indiana 
 
Jeffrey R. Wright  
 
 
 
 
 
Michael Gene Worden 
Deputy Public Defender  
 
 
 
 
Deputy Attorney General 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
 
 
 
 
 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
 
______________________________________________________________________________ 
 
In the 
Indiana Supreme Court  
_________________________________ 
 
No. 65S01-0409-PC-433 
 
DONNA K. STITES, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appellant (Petitioner below), 
 
v. 
 
STATE OF INDIANA, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appellee (Respondent below). 
_________________________________ 
 
Appeal from the Posey Circuit Court, No. 85-S-14 
The Honorable James M. Redwine, Judge 
_________________________________ 
 
On Petition To Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 65A01-0310-PC-402 
_________________________________ 
 
June 23, 2005 
 
Rucker, Justice. 
 
Donna K. Stites entered a plea agreement that provided the sentence she received would 
run consecutive to a sentence she was already serving.  She later challenged the plea as illegal.  
We conclude that Stites received the benefit of her bargain and cannot now complain.  
 
Facts and Procedural History 
 
 
On November 12, 1984, Stites was charged in Vanderburgh County with the murder of 
her stepfather, Ron Fulton.  She pleaded guilty to this charge in February 1985 and was 
sentenced to fifty years imprisonment.  In July of 1985, Stites, along with accomplice Frank 
Dorsey, was charged in Posey County with murder during the course of robbery of Edgar Dutell.  
Under the terms of a plea agreement, the trial court sentenced Stites to a term of forty years 
imprisonment, to run consecutively with the Vanderburgh County sentence.  As part of the plea 
agreement the State agreed that it would not seek the death penalty.  It bears emphasizing that 
Stites specifically agreed to the consecutive sentences in her plea agreement with the State; this 
was not an “open plea.” 
 
 
On July 16, 1999, Stites filed a pro se petition for post-conviction relief.  And on August 
26, 2002, represented by counsel, Stites filed a motion to correct erroneous sentence, alleging the 
trial court had no authority “to order two sentences from different counties to be served 
consecutively.”  Appellant’s App. at 45.  Thereafter on November 4, 2002, Stites filed an 
amended petition for post-conviction relief, again alleging that her Posey County murder 
sentence was illegal because the trial court lacked authority to order the sentence served 
consecutive to any other sentence.  She also alleged that her guilty plea was not entered 
knowingly, voluntarily, or intelligently, and that counsel rendered ineffective assistance.  
 
After conducting a hearing on Stites’ amended petition for post-conviction relief and her 
motion to correct erroneous sentence, the court denied the motion.  On review the Court of 
Appeals vacated Stites’ conviction and sentence on the ground that the trial court lacked 
authority to impose consecutive sentences.  Stites v. State, 810 N.E.2d 1083, 1086 (Ind. Ct. App. 
2004).  Having previously granted transfer we now affirm the judgment of the post-conviction 
court. 
 
Discussion 
 
Generally, a trial court cannot order consecutive sentences in the absence of express 
statutory authority.  Baromich v. State, 252 Ind. 412, 249 N.E.2d 30, 33 (1969).  At the time 
 
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Stites committed the offense the statute governing consecutive sentences was limited to those 
occasions where the court was meting out two or more terms of imprisonment at one time.  See 
Kendrick v. State, 529 N.E.2d 1311, 1312 (Ind. 1988), superseded by statute.  Because Stites’ 
sentences for the two murder convictions were not being imposed at one time, the trial court 
lacked statutory authority to order the sentences to be served consecutively.  
 
In reversing the judgment of the post-conviction court, the Court of Appeals relied on 
three cases that stand for the proposition that a conviction and sentence entered pursuant to an 
illegal plea agreement must be vacated.  Stites, 810 N.E.2d at 1087 (citing Sinn v. State, 609 
N.E.2d 434, 436 (Ind. Ct. App. 1993); Thompson v. State, 634 N.E.2d 775 (Ind. Ct. App. 1994); 
Badger v. State, 754 N.E.2d 930, 932-36 (Ind. Ct App. 2001)).  However, while the instant case 
was pending on transfer, we decided Lee v. State, 816 N.E.2d 35 (Ind. 2004).  There, we rejected 
the holdings in Sinn, Thompson, and Badger, and held instead “[a] defendant may not enter a 
plea agreement calling for an illegal sentence, benefit from that sentence, and then later complain 
that it was an illegal sentence.”  Lee, 816 N.E.2d at 40 (quotations omitted).  We further held, 
“[D]efendants who plead guilty to achieve favorable outcomes give up a plethora of substantive 
claims and procedural rights, such as challenges to convictions that would otherwise constitute 
double jeopardy.  Striking a favorable bargain including a consecutive sentence the court might 
otherwise not have the ability to impose falls within this category.”  Id. (quotations omitted).
 
 
Like Lee, Stites received a significant benefit from her plea agreement.  In particular she 
received less than the maximum possible sentence of sixty years, and the State agreed not to seek 
the death penalty.  After striking this favorable bargain, Stites cannot now be heard to complain.  
Accordingly, Stites’ sentence and conviction are not invalid on the ground that the trial court 
lacked statutory authority to impose consecutive sentences. 
 
 
Stites also alleges that apart from the trial court’s imposition of consecutive sentences, 
she is entitled to relief on separate grounds, namely: her plea agreement was not voluntarily, 
knowingly, or intelligently made, and that counsel rendered ineffective assistance.  But these 
claims are merely a subset of Stites’ claim that her plea agreement was void because it called for 
consecutive sentences.  Specifically Stites contends that she “agreed to a forty (40) year 
 
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consecutive sentence for murder, without any knowledge concerning the illegal nature of this 
sentence” and that counsel rendered ineffective assistance for “failure to advise Stites that the 
court did not have discretionary authority to order consecutive sentences . . . .”  Br. of Appellant 
at 19, 20.  Because the trial court did have the authority to order consecutive sentences under the 
terms of the plea agreement, Stites’ argument fails.   
 
Conclusion 
 
We affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court. 
 
Shepard, C.J., and Dickson, Sullivan and Boehm, JJ., concur. 
 
 
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