Opinion ID: 853423
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Weighing the Mitigation

Text: Tunstill next argues that the trial court should have afforded greater mitigating weight to his guilty plea when it realized that the habitual offender statute required it to enhance the sentence by thirty years. (Appellant's Br. at 11.) The sentencing decision is within the discretion of the trial court and will be reversed only for a manifest abuse of that discretion. Sims v. State, 585 N.E.2d 271, 272 (Ind.1992). The court cited Tunstill's prior criminal history as an aggravator, and both his admission of responsibility by plea agreement and remorse as mitigators. Determining that these factors balanced, the court sentenced Tunstill to a thirty-year presumptive sentence on his dealing cocaine conviction. It further enhanced the sentence by ten years under the habitual offender statute. This was a mistake quickly corrected. Indiana Code § 35-50-2-8(e) requires the court to sentence a person found to be a habitual criminal to an additional fixed term that is not less than the presumptive sentence for the underlying offense nor more than three (3) times the presumptive sentence for the underlying offense. However, the additional sentence may not exceed thirty (30) years. Once the judge realized his mistake, [3] he revised the order and enhanced Tunstill's sentence by thirty years. (R. at 182.) In effect, Tunstill claims the trial court should have reduced the sentence on the present cocaine charge to compensate for its lack of discretion regarding the habitual offender enhancement. A judge might well do this, in order to assure that the overall sentence is appropriate to the offense and the offender. Here, the trial judge concluded that the aggravating and mitigating circumstances balance. (R. at 180.) It thus imposed the presumptive sentence for the instant crime and added the habitual offender enhancement. We are not persuaded that this was an abuse of discretion.