Opinion ID: 3133309
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: analysis

Text: A. Idaho Code section 18-309 allows a defendant to receive credit on multiple charges for prejudgment time served and therefore requires this Court to overrule State v. Hoch. Idaho Code section 18-309 governs sentencing credit for pre- and postjudgment time served. That statute states: 2 In computing the term of imprisonment, the person against whom the judgment was entered, shall receive credit in the judgment for any period of incarceration prior to entry of judgment, if such incarceration was for the offense or an included offense for which the judgment was entered. The remainder of the term commences upon the pronouncement of sentence and if thereafter, during such term, the defendant by any legal means is temporarily released from such imprisonment and subsequently returned thereto, the time during which he was at large must not be computed as part of such term. I.C. § 18-309. This appeal focuses on Idaho Code section 18-309’s first sentence, which governs credit for prejudgment time served. That part of the statute requires courts to give a person credit on his sentence for the time he served in jail before he was convicted of or pled guilty to his crime. Law v. Rasmussen, 104 Idaho 455, 457, 660 P.2d 67, 69 (1983). This Court has interpreted Idaho Code section 18-309 as prohibiting a court from crediting prejudgment confinement towards more than one count of a concurrent sentence. State v. Hoch, 102 Idaho 351, 630 P.2d 143 (1981). In Hoch, a defendant argued that he should have been credited 383 days he spent in prejudgment confinement on each of his two consecutive sentences. Id. at 352, 630 P.2d at 144. The Court stated: A statute is to be construed in consideration of the reason for the statute, its object and purpose and thereby ascertain and render effective the legislative intent. We hold that the purpose of I.C. § 18-309 is clearly to give a person convicted of a crime credit for such time as he may have served prior to the actual sentencing upon conviction. We find no intent of the legislature that a person so convicted should have that credit pyramided simply because he was sentenced to consecutive terms for separate crimes. Id. (internal citations omitted). Subsequent Idaho Court of Appeals cases have addressed this issue and applied Hoch’s reasoning. See State v. Hernandez, 120 Idaho 785, 792, 820 P.2d 380, 387 (Ct. App. 1991) (holding that Idaho Code section 18-309 does not allow the defendant to receive credit for more time than he has actually been in confinement); See also State v. Vasquez, 142 Idaho 67, 69, 122 P.3d 1167, 1169 (Ct. App. 2005) (holding that “where two or more charges form multiple bases for the defendant’s presentence confinement, the defendant is entitled to credit against each sentence imposed on those charges as long as the credit would not be duplicative”). Owens argues that Idaho Code section 18-309 is unambiguous and has only one reasonable interpretation: that a defendant receives credit for prejudgment time served on each sentence for each count. The State contends that Owens asks for credit for more time than he actually spent in prejudgment confinement by multiplying his time by the number of sentences. 3 The State argues this Court should reject Owens’s interpretation and continue to follow Hoch because it ensures that a defendant receives credit for time actually served before the court entered a judgment, but not more. 1. Idaho Code section 18-309’s plain language is unambiguous. Idaho Code section 18-309’s language plainly gives credit for prejudgment time in custody against each count’s sentence. The statute does not limit that credit in any way. First, Idaho Code section 18-309 mandates that a court gives a defendant credit for his time served because the statute states that a person “shall” receive credit. Second, section 18-309 specifies that a person “shall receive credit in the judgment for any period of incarceration prior to entry of judgment . . .” I.C. § 18–309 (emphasis added). The statute continues to provide that a defendant gets the credit only on a requirement that incarceration was for “the offense or an included offense for which the judgment was entered.” The statute has a mandatory directive that specifically conditions credit for time served on the fact that the incarceration was for “the offense” for which the judgment was entered. While the word “offense” is singular, the phrase “if such incarceration was for the offense or an included offense for which the judgment was entered” simply describes the type of incarceration that a defendant gets credit for. This indicates that as long as the defendant’s prejudgment jail time was for “the offense” the defendant was convicted of and sentenced for, the court gives the defendant that credit. If the legislature had delineated credit for incarceration for “each case” or another description other than “the offense,” the outcome would be different. Here, Owens was incarcerated before trial. He was in jail for multiple counts of issuing a check without funds before he pled guilty. After Owens was convicted, the court sentenced him for eight different offenses of issuing a check without funds. Thus, he gets credit for the prejudgment time he served on each of the eight separate offenses. We hold Idaho Code section 18-309’s plain language unambiguously states that a defendant receives credit for time served on each of his offenses, whether to be served concurrently or consecutively. Consecutive sentences are served in order, and one sentence does not begin until the other sentence ends. For example, a defendant sentenced to 100 days consecutively for eight counts will serve 800 days in jail. However, if that defendant served 50 days in jail before he was convicted of the eight counts, he gets 50 days credit for each of those 100 day sentences. He then has 50 days left to serve on the first count. When that time is served, he has 50 days left to serve 4 on the second count. And so it continues for each count in the judgment. However, when a defendant is sentenced to a concurrent sentence, he serves all his sentences at the same time. That means that if he is sentenced to 100 days for eight counts, he will serve 100 days total for all eight counts. If that defendant gets 50 days of prejudgment credit, he will get that credit towards all eight counts at the same time. He will then only serve 50 more days in jail. This is how the statute’s plain language requires courts to apply credit for time served. 2. Hoch was incorrectly decided and manifestly wrong. Stare decisis requires that this Court follows controlling precedent unless that precedent is manifestly wrong, has proven over time to be unjust or unwise, or overruling that precedent is necessary to vindicate plain, obvious principles of law and remedy continued injustice. State v. Grant, 154 Idaho 281, 287, 297 P.3d 244, 250 (2013). The State argues that Owens failed to show any of these circumstances are present. However, the Court’s reasoning in Hoch incorrectly looked at legislative intent when Idaho Code section 18-309 is unambiguous. Indeed, the Court never even mentioned whether it found the statute unambiguous. Hoch, 102 Idaho at 352, 630 P.2d at 144. The Court stated, “the purpose of I.C. § 18-309 is clearly to give a person convicted of a crime credit for such time as he may have served prior to the actual sentencing upon conviction.” Id. The Court further reasoned that the legislature did not intend that a person convicted of consecutive sentences could have his “credit pyramided simply because he was sentenced to consecutive terms for separate crimes.” Id. The fact that Hoch overlooked the statute’s plain language is manifestly wrong. “We have consistently held that where statutory language is unambiguous, legislative history and other extrinsic evidence should not be consulted for the purpose of altering the clearly expressed intent of the legislature.” Verska v. Saint Alphonsus Reg’l Med. Ctr., 151 Idaho 889, 893, 265 P.3d 502, 506 (2011) (quoting City of Sun Valley v. Sun Valley Co., 123 Idaho 665, 667, 851 P.2d 961, 963 (1993)). At the time of the Hoch decision, the Court could only go beyond a statute’s unambiguous plain meaning when “a literal reading of a provision will work an unreasonable or absurd result . . . .” Hoch, 102 Idaho at 355, 630 P.2d at 147 (Bistline, J., dissenting) (quoting Eberle v. Nielson, 78 Idaho 572, 581, 306 P.2d 1083, 1088 (1957)). However, we have foreclosed the possibility that Hoch implicitly held Idaho Code section 18309 absurd or unreasonable: “we have never revised or voided an unambiguous statute on the 5 ground that it is patently absurd or would produce absurd results when construed as written, and we do not have the authority to do so.” Verska, 151 Idaho at 896, 265 P.3d at 509. Thus, Hoch erroneously relied on the statute’s legislative purpose without finding the statute was ambiguous. Further, the Court could not have correctly found Idaho Code section 18-309’s language