Opinion ID: 1326341
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Discrimination Against Indigent Defendants

Text: The majority opinion suggests that refusing to allow credit for preconviction jail time to be credited toward probationary confinement would discriminate against indigent defendants. The majority so concludes because, theoretically, an indigent defendant could be confined longer than the statutory penalty. This indigent-based discrimination claim is wrong. To illustrate my point, I will examine the trial court's decision in this case in a different context. Assume that the defendant was able to make bail and did not accumulate any preconviction jail time. Let us further assume that the trial court suspended imposition of the defendant's sentence and placed the defendant on probation with a condition of confinement for six months. Moreover, let us assume this defendant served the six months confinement, but, after being released, violated probation. Subsequently, the trial court revoked probation and sentenced the defendant to the maximum allowable sentence of imprisonment which is three years. Under this hypothetical situation, the defendant does not have any preconviction jail time to use as credit toward the prison sentence. Therefore, the net result is that this non-indigent defendant would have spent three years in prison and six months in jail. [6] Had the defendant in this case not been granted preconviction jail time credit toward his probationary term of confinement, he would have been subjected to the same total period of confinement as the non-indigent defendant in the hypothetical situation described above. In other words, under the law as it existed prior to the majority opinion, both the indigent and non-indigent defendants would have been confined for a total of three years and six months. The result of the majority opinion in this case, in essence, permits trial courts to use probationary confinement only against defendants who are able to post pretrial bail. The defendants who do not post pretrial bail will have preconviction jail time that will defeat imposition of probationary confinement. This antagonistic situation may force trial courts to sentence indigent defendants to jail rather than suspending their sentence. I submit that such a scheme as created by the majority opinion is wrong and contrary to what the legislature has deemed fair and appropriate.