Court Opinion

ID: 9726002
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 12:26:36.290238+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:22.552159
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the majority's conclusion that the trial court did not err in sentencing Woodward to 180 days executed time and suspending the other 185 days of the sentence. I do so because although the two prior convictions were not prior unrelated felonies as defined in the Habitual Offender statutes, they were in fact prior and unrelated both as to the instant offense of May 11, 2002 and as to each other.
Where I part company with the majority is with regard to the conclusions that the temporal relationship among and between the respective felonies only concerns the temporal relationship "between the instant conviction and those predicate convictions [and that] 'prior unrelated' convictions within the meaning of the General Suspension Statute refers to offenses that were committed before the instant offense and were reduced to judgment before the instant conviction was entered." Op. at 263-264.
This analysis requires no temporal examination as between the two prior convie-tions and would permit application of the General Suspension Statute as to prior convictions which are clearly related in "time or order." Id.
For example, under the majority's holding, a trial court could suspend only the minimum sentence if the defendant had on *265a prior date operated a vehicle while intoxicated, a violation of I.C. 9-30-5, and at the same time was in violation of the statute prohibiting tampering with or cireumvent-ing an ignition interlock device on the vehicle. See I.C. § 9-30-5-8. Both such of fenses would be clearly related to each other even though both are unrelated to the instant offense.
Thus, although I agree that under the General Suspension Statute the date of commission of the second prior offense need not follow the sentencing for the first prior offense, the two prior offenses must be unrelated to each other when committed. That temporal unrelationship is present in the case before us. Woodward admitted that her first prior offense took place May 27, 1999, and the second offense took place on June 14, 1999. They were not only prior and unrelated to the offense of May 11, 2002. They were unrelated to each other.
For this reason I concur in affirming the sentence imposed by the trial court.