Opinion ID: 1911444
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Whether the Mittimus Was Void.

Text: [i]f a person is sentenced for two or more separate offenses, the sentencing judge may order the second or further sentence to begin at the expiration of the first or succeeding sentence.... If consecutive sentences are specified in the order of commitment, the several terms shall be construed as one continuous term of imprisonment. (Emphasis added.) Under Iowa Code section 903.4, [a]ll persons sentenced to confinement for a period of one year or less shall be confined in a place to be furnished by the county where the conviction was had unless the person is presently committed to the custody of the director of the Iowa department of corrections, in which case the provisions of section 901.8 apply. All persons sentenced to confinement for a period of more than one year shall be committed to the custody of the director of the Iowa department of corrections to be confined in a place to be designated by the director and the cost of the confinement shall be borne by the state. (Emphasis added.) B. The merits. At the time of sentencing in this case, Orte was already serving a one-year sentence in the county jail for an unrelated drug possession conviction. The district court committed Orte to the custody of the Iowa department of corrections after sentencing him to concurrent ten-year terms on the homicide by vehicle convictions. The court then made the following pertinent comments: I note that you are now serving a sentence of one year in the Clinton County jail. You were on probation, and your probation was revoked. The original sentence was for possession of a controlled substance. The mittimus in this case will be withheld until April 23, 1995. In other words, you're going to sit in the Clinton County jail and do every day that you owe this community on that charge before you start serving these sentences that I impose today. I'm not going to run them all at the same time. You serve the sentence you're now serving first, and then you will start serving this one. They will not run simultaneously. .... Mittimus in this case will be withheld until you have completed your county jail sentence now being served. One court has described a mittimus this way: A mittimus is similar to an execution after judgment in a civil case. It is the means by which the judgment of the court is carried out.... The purpose of the mittimus is to tell the sheriff, who was not a party to the suit that produced the judgment, who he is to take into custody, why he is to take him, where he is to take him, and for how long. Richmond v. Barksdale, 688 S.W.2d 86, 88 (Tenn.App.1984). Orte relies on sections 901.8 and 903.4. Orte thinks the district court lacked authority to delay mittimus on the current sentences for eight months so that he would have to serve his county jail time on the drug sentence. The State concedes that sentencing courts cannot fashion sentences in ways that avoid parole ramifications. But the State contends that was not what happened here. The State argues there was no problem with the provisions of sections 901.8 and 903.4. The reason, the State says, is because all the court did was to delay the homicide by vehicle sentences. We disagree and conclude that the withheld mittimus effectively avoided parole ramifications. Without the withheld mittimus, Orte ordinarily would have served half of his concurrent sentences on the homicide by vehicle convictions. This is so because of the good time provisions. Bradham v. State, 480 N.W.2d 28 (Iowa 1992); Iowa Code § 903A.2. He would then begin serving his remaining eight-month sentence on the drug conviction. Iowa Code § 901.8. At this point he would have been immediately eligible for parole on the drug sentence. See Iowa Code § 906.1. Because of the delayed mittimus, Orte would have to serve all of the remaining eight months of his drug sentence. In State v. Kapell, 510 N.W.2d 878 (Iowa 1994), the district court sentenced the defendant to two years on an operating while intoxicated conviction. The court also sentenced the defendant to five days in the county jail on a conviction of driving while suspended. The court ordered the sentences to run consecutively. Vacating the five-day sentence, we said: [The defendant] correctly argues that the sentences constitute one continuous term of imprisonment under section 901.8. Therefore, in determining the propriety of the court's order [on the five-day sentence], we treat the sentences on both charges as one. Because section 903.4 provides that a sentence of confinement for more than one year must be served in a place designated by the director of the department of corrections, [the defendant] contends that the court imposed an illegal sentence by ordering him to serve five days of his continuous term in the county jail. We agree. Id. at 880. Similarly here, the sentences for the homicide by vehicle convictions and the drug conviction constitute one continuous term of imprisonment. See Iowa Code § 901.8. So in determining the propriety of the mittimus, we treat the sentences on all three convictions as one. Because the sentence of confinement is for more than one year, the department of corrections must designate the place of confinement. See Iowa Code § 903.4. The district court could not alter this designation by refusing to issue the mittimus. We see no difference between the effect of the mittimus in this case and the effect of the five-day sentence to the county jail in Kapell. In both instances, a part of the continuous sentence would be served in the county jail rather than a place designated by the director of the department of corrections. As one court put it, [t]he prisoner is detained, not by virtue of the warrant of commitment, but on account of the judgment and sentence. The mittimus is predicated upon the judgment of conviction and must be in substantial accord therewith. It, of course, cannot vary or contradict the judgment upon which it is based. Biddle v. Shirley, 16 F.2d 566, 567 (8th Cir. 1926) (citations omitted). Here, too, Orte was detained, not by the mittimus, but by the judgment and sentence on the homicide by vehicle convictions. The mittimus was predicated on that judgment of conviction and could not vary that judgment. Nor could the mittimus vary the terms of section 901.8, which clearly makes all three convictions one continuous sentence. Likewise, the mittimus could not vary the terms of section 903.4, which clearly requires that this continuous sentence be served in a place designated by the department of corrections. The mittimus was therefore void.