Court Opinion

ID: 7824162
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-07 18:03:05.408915+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:30:48.934673
License: Public Domain

John I. Purtle, Justice, dissenting. There is no authority for a court to split a sentence by suspending a part of it after part of it has been served, and then placing it back in force after a period of suspension. A ten year sentence could be strung along for twenty years or more under the theory utilized by the trial court. This type of sentencing could result in extending the maximum legal sentence for as many additional years as the trial court deems appropriate. That’s not the law. It is true that the appellant could have been sentenced to 60 years, but he was not. The court imposed two 30 year sentences but actually sentenced him to 40 years by hyphenating one of the terms in the middle. It would have been proper to sentence him to 30 and 10 years consecutively in order to arrive at the agreed-upon 40 year sentence. Hickman, J., not participating.