Opinion ID: 202732
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Juvenile Crimes

Text: 5 Bell's juvenile crimes occurred in two temporal clusters. The first cluster (Cluster A) consisted of three crimes committed between October 12, 2000, and October 26, 2000. In Cluster A, Bell was convicted of terrorizing, for leaving a bomb threat in the bathroom of his high school; of petty theft, for stealing $55 from a tip tray on the counter of a local restaurant; and of criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon, for brandishing a knife and demanding money and cigarettes at a local convenience store. Bell was arrested for all three offenses at the same time, on October 31, 2000. Each charged offense was assigned a separate docket number. The three charges were resolved at a unified dispositional hearing on April 6, 2001. Separate sentences were imposed for each crime, 1 and the sentences were made to run concurrently. 2 6 The second cluster of juvenile crimes (Cluster B) consisted of five crimes committed by Bell between December 17, 2001 and March 28, 2002. In Cluster B, Bell was convicted of disorderly conduct, for kicking a wall at his high school; of petty theft, for stealing three posters from a comic book store; of nine counts of burglary, theft, and aggravated criminal mischief, for burglarizing five summer cottages; of forgery and theft, for attempting to negotiate a falsely made check in the name of his mother's roommate; and of possession of alcohol by a minor and escape. Each of the five crimes was assigned a separate docket number; these separate docket numbers were retained for the duration of the legal proceedings. All five charges were resolved at a unified dispositional hearing on May 16, 2002, before the same juvenile judge who had presided over the Cluster A sentencing. 7 There is some inconsistency among the court records regarding the sentences imposed for the Cluster B crimes. The court issued a unified Judgment and Commitment order, carrying the docket numbers of all five crimes, imposing a sentence of commitment in a juvenile detention facility until Bell reached age 19. 3 This document might be read to suggest that, because of the imposition of one unified sentence, the crimes were consolidated for sentencing purposes. However, the court also maintained separate docket numbers and individual docket sheets for each of the charged crimes, and the docket sheets indicate that the court actually imposed separate, concurrent sentences as to each offense, as there were variations among the sentences imposed for each crime. For example, restitution of $5,200 was ordered for the disorderly conduct charge, restitution of $17 was ordered for the petty theft charge, and the commitment period imposed for the alcohol and escape charges was set to run only until Bell reached age 18. 8 On a separate issue, the district court found that there were no intervening arrests between the first four crimes in Cluster B, but that there was an intervening arrest between the fourth and fifth crimes. 4 Because the sentencing guidelines state that sentences are not related where they are separated by an intervening arrest, see USSG § 4A1.2, cmt. n. 3, the district court's conclusion meant that the fifth crime in Cluster B could not be related to the other crimes in that cluster. 9 Bell timely appealed the district court's rejection of his claim of consolidation.