Opinion ID: 2244925
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Denial of request for continuation of the sentencing hearing.

Text: After the jury returned its verdict, the trial court set a hearing on sentencing. The day before the hearing, defendant and his counsel were provided with a copy of the Pre-Sentence Investigation Report that had been prepared in this case. At the beginning of the hearing, defendant moved the court for a continuance of the sentencing hearing to provide him additional time to review the report. This motion was denied. Defendant claims the trial court erred in denying his motion and asks for a remand for a new sentencing hearing. The decision whether to grant a continuance is committed to the discretion of the trial court and will not be reversed absent an abuse of that discretion. Williams v. State, 669 N.E.2d 1372, 1386 (Ind.1996). There is no specific deadline for the filing of a pre-sentence investigation report except that the factual contents or a copy of the report must be furnished sufficiently in advance of sentencing so that the defendant will be afforded a fair opportunity to controvert the material included. Ind.Code § 35-38-1-12(b). This Court has previously stated that it would be better if trial courts routinely made sure the pre-sentence report was made available more than one day before the sentencing hearing. Lang v. State, 461 N.E.2d 1110, 1114 (Ind.1984). However, it is incumbent upon defendant to show how he was prejudiced by a short time period within which to review a pre-sentence report. Drake v. State, 555 N.E.2d 1278, 1283 (Ind. 1990). In this case, defendant makes no claim that the pre-sentence report contains factual errors or inaccuracies requiring additional time to try to rebut. In similar cases, we have refused to find error even in instances where the pre-sentence report was provided only a few hours before the sentencing hearing. Drake, 555 N.E.2d at 1283; Lang, 461 N.E.2d at 1114. Likewise, we find no error here.