Court Opinion

ID: 9655819
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:22:59.859549+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:39.742133
License: Public Domain

COOPER, Justice,
dissenting.
Following his trial by jury on December 2, 1994, Appellant expressed satisfaction with the jury’s verdict, waived a separate sentencing hearing, and requested that he be sentenced forthwith. The trial judge stated that he would impose the ten-year sentence fixed by the jury and that he would order the sentence to run consecutively with the five years Appellant was already serving. The trial judge also made a written notation to that effect on the court calendar. Significantly, he further advised Appellant that he would award him his jail credit time, if any, “in the final judgment.” The final judgment, which was entered on December 8, 1994, was silent as to whether the ten-year sentence would run concurrently or consecutively with the previous five-year sentence. Thus, the sentences were required to run concurrently.
If the court does not specify the manner in which a sentence imposed by it is to run, the sentence shall run concurrently with any other sentence which the defendant must serve.
KRS 532.110(2).
No appeal was taken from the judgment and it became final ten days after its entry. Silverburg v. Commonwealth, Ky., 587 S.W.2d 241, 244 (1979). More than eight months later, on August 22, 1995, the trial judge entered an amended judgment sua sponte and without any notice to Appellant. The amended judgment ordered the ten-year sentence imposed in this case to run consecutively with Appellant’s previous five-year sentence, thereby increasing the total amount of time to be served from ten years to fifteen years.
Contrary to the suggestion in the majority opinion, the trial judge’s oral pronouncements from the bench on December 2, 1994 do not take precedence over the written judgment entered on December 8, 1994. While that might be the rule in federal courts, United States v. Becker, 36 F.3d 708 (7th Cir.1994), the rule in Kentucky is that when there is an inconsistency between oral statements of the presiding judge and an order or judgment reduced to writing, the written order or judgment prevails. RCr 13.04; CR 54.01; Commonwealth v. Taber, Ky., 941 S.W.2d 463, 464 (1997); Commonwealth v. Hicks, Ky., 869 S.W.2d 35, 37-38 (1994).
When there is an inconsistency between oral statements of a court and an order reduced to writing, the latter must prevail. Assuming for the sake of argument that the statements are inconsistent, if they could be used to, in effect, impeach the trial court’s written order, “the result would be the destruction of any certainty as to the effect of judgments and a state of chaos in judicial proceedings.”
Taber, supra, at 464 (quoting Hicks, supra, at 38). Nor could the notation on the court calendar qualify as a judgment, since *679it did not include all of the requirements of RCr 11.04(1).
The majority opinion also contravenes a previously unbroken line of precedents which hold that a trial judge loses jurisdiction to amend a judgment in a criminal case ten days after its entry. Commonwealth v. Gross, Ky., 936 S.W.2d 85 (1996) (judgment could not be amended twenty-one months later to probate the sentence); Commonwealth v. Marcum, Ky., 873 S.W.2d 207 (1994) (judgment could not be amended fifty-three days later to increase the sentence from five years to ten years); Silverburg v. Commonwealth, supra (judgment could not be amended thirty-eight days later to reduce the sentence from one year to ten months); McMurray v. Commonwealth, Ky.App., 682 S.W.2d 794 (1985) (judgment could not be amended forty-three days later to increase the sentence from one year probated to five years without probation). The majority’s reb-anee on Potter v. Eli Lilly and Co., Ky., 926 S.W.2d 449 (1996) is misplaced.
Potter does not do away with the rules of finality, nor does it nullify the ten-day rule of CR 59.05 or expand CR 60.02. Potter recognizes a very narrow exception to the rules of finality. It applies only in the extraordinary circumstances where a fraud has been perpetrated upon the court. “It encompasses bad faith conduct, abuse of judicial process, any deception of the court and lack of candor to the court.”
Gross, supra, at 88 (quoting Potter, supra, at 454).
The majority opinion finesses all of these existing precedents by holding that the failure of the trial judge to include in the final judgment an order requiring that the sentence run consecutively with Appellant’s previous five-year sentence was a mere “clerical error” correctable “at any time.” RCr 10.10. From this dubious conclusion, I vigorously dissent. In Dublin v. Osborne, Ky., 388 S.W.2d 588 (1965), the defendant was convicted and sentenced to one year in prison on each of two charges, which were tried separately. The judgment entered on the second conviction recited that the sentences for the two convictions were to run concurrently. Eight months later (coincidentally) and without notice to the defendant (coincidentally), the trial judge entered an order amending the second judgment to require the sentences to run consecutively, thereby increasing the total amount of time to be served from one year to two years. On appeal, the circuit clerk filed an affidavit stating that the minute book (which, similar to our present-day court calendar1, was a memorandum prepared in open court to summarize the proceedings) reflected that the judge had ordered the sentences to run consecutively; but that “[t]hrough inadvertence and error,” the final judgment prepared by the clerk erroneously reflected that the sentences were to run concurrently. Finding this amendment of the judgment to be “a matter of material substance,” id. at 591, our predecessor court held that the amendment was “improper, untimely and illegal.” Id. at 590. Contrary to the majority’s interpretation of Dublin, nothing therein suggests that the decision was based on a perceived vindictiveness on the part of the trial judge. Rather, it is apparent that the amendment was made to correct the clerk’s mistake as reflected by the clerk’s affidavit.
As the majority points out, RCr 10.10 was intended to operate similarly as CR 60.01 operates in civil cases. (Of course, as the majority also points out and as will be discussed infra, the amendment of a judgment to increase the penalty in a criminal case has both due process and double jeopardy implications.) Nevertheless, there is a distinction between clerical errors and judicial errors. For example, mistakes involving dates are considered clerical errors. E.g., Commonwealth, Dep’t of Highways v. Richardson, Ky., 424 S.W.2d 601 (1967); Commonwealth, Dep’t of Highways v. Daly, Ky., 374 S.W.2d 497 (1964); Citizens Bank & Trust Co. v. McEuen, 281 Ky. 113, 134 S.W.2d 1012 *680(1939). So, too, are mathematical errors. E.g., Weil v. B.E. Buffaloe & Co., 251 Ky. 673, 65 S.W.2d 704 (1933). On the other hand, mistakes involving matters of substance are considered judicial errors. In Wides v. Wides, 300 Ky. 344, 188 S.W.2d 471 (1945), the parties to a divorce action had entered into an agreement which provided inter alia that the-husband would pay alimony to the wife during the husband’s lifetime or until the wife remarried. Through an unexplained error, the trial judge entered a judgment awarding alimony to the wife during the wife’s lifetime or until she remarried. Upon the husband’s death, the wife sought a judgment against his estate for continued payment of the alimony award. Relying on common law principles subsequently codified as CR 60.01, the trial judge amended the judgment to conform to the parties’ agreement. On appeal, it was held that the amendment had altered the substance of the judgment; and that the alimony provision in the original judgment was not a clerical error, but a judicial error, which could not be corrected by collateral action “[e]ven if the judgment was not what the judge intended to be entered.” Id., 188 S.W.2d at 474. The facts of this case are conceptually the same as in Wides and almost exactly the same as in Dublin, supra. Increasing the defendant’s punishment from ten years to fifteen years was “a matter of material substance,” Dublin, supra, at 591, which altered the substance of the judgment, Wides, supra, 188 S.W.2d at 474, thus was not a clerical error, but a judicial error, which could not be corrected by collateral action. Id.
The majority opinion’s reliance on Buchanan v. West Kentucky Coal Co., 218 Ky. 259, 291 S.W. 32 (1927) is misplaced. Buchanan did not involve an error in a judgment, but an error in a tax assessment. The error was an incorrect classification of certain property as personal property rather than real property, which resulted in a higher tax rate. In holding that the incorrect classification was not a “clerical error,” our predecessor court stated as follows:
“Clerical errors” are universally defined by both courts and textwriters as inadvertences or oversights by the maker of the record (usually the clerks), and which are apparent on the face of the document or record in which they appear, and are, therefore, discoverable by inspection. They may have been committed by the court, if it attempted to perform only clerical duties, and the rule is universal that such errors so committed, and so appearing from the face of the record or document containing them, may be corrected by appropriate application at any time, or at least within a reasonable one, after the adjournment of the term of court in which they were committed.
Id., 291 S.W. at 35 (emphasis added). Not only was the trial judge in the case sub judice performing a judicial duty as opposed to a clerical one, his error, if any, was substantive and not apparent from a mere examination of the face of the record. But even if Buchanan could be interpreted as holding contrary to Wides v. Wides, supra, Wides, being the later case, would control. Smith v. Overstreet’s Adm’r, 258 Ky. 781, 81 S.W.2d 571, 572 (1935).
More importantly, the amendment of the judgment in this case violated Appellant’s constitutional rights to due process of law and protection against double jeopardy. U.S. Const. amends. V, XIV; Ky. Const. §§ 13, 14. In Hard v. Commonwealth, Ky., 450 S.W.2d 530 (1970), the defendant entered a guilty plea to storehouse breaking and was sentenced to one year in prison. The sentence was probated. When the defendant violated the conditions of his probation eight months later (coincidentally), the trial judge revoked his probation and increased his punishment to two years. Although the language of KRS 439.300(1) (repealed, 1974 Ky.Acts ch. 406 § 336) provided that upon revocation of probation, the trial judge “may impose any sentence which might have been imposed *681at the time of conviction,” it was held that imposition of the increased sentence was unconstitutional.
If he was tried and judgment entered fixing his punishment at one year, he has been once placed in jeopardy for the offense charged. He cannot be again placed in jeopardy for the same offense. Constitution of Kentucky, § 13.
Due process of law (Constitution of the United States, Amend. 14, § 1 and Constitution of Kentucky, § 14) must be followed to insure a valid conviction of his felonious charge. Due process does not contemplate that months or years later his “trial” may be opened and a greater punishment imposed.
Hord v. Commonwealth, supra, at 531-32; see also United States v. Benz, 282 U.S. 304, 51 S.Ct. 113, 75 L.Ed. 354 (1931) (trial court has the power to amend a sentence during the court session in which it was entered, but only to mitigate the punishment and not to increase it, for the latter would constitute double punishment).
The majority asserts that an exception to this rule occurs if the defendant did not have a legitimate expectation in the finality of his sentence, and cites Bozza v. United States, 330 U.S. 160, 67 S.Ct. 645, 91 L.Ed. 818 (1947) for the proposition that a defendant has no legitimate expectation in the finality of a sentence which is illegal or unauthorized by statute. [Although not cited by the trial judge as grounds for overruling Appellant’s RCr 11.42 motion for relief from the amended judgment, and not mentioned in either the Court of Appeals’ opinion or in any of the briefs filed by the Commonwealth, the sentence imposed in the December 8, 1994 judgment may have been contrary to KRS 533.060(3) (sentence for an offense committed while awaiting trial for another offense cannot run concurrently with the sentence for the other offense). Commonwealth v. Martin, Ky.App., 777 S.W.2d 236 (1989). Nevertheless, as in Commonwealth v. Martin and Commonwealth v. Gross, supra, the Commonwealth could have sought correction of the error by filing a timely appeal.] Regardless, Bozza v. United States, supra, represented a narrow departure from the line of cases beginning with Ex parte Lange, 85 U.S. (18 Wall.) 163, 21 L.Ed. 872 (1873) and including United States v. Benz, supra, which hold that although a criminal judgment can be amended during the term of court in which it was rendered to decrease the defendant’s punishment, it cannot be so amended to increase the punishment without violating the proscription against double jeopardy. In Bozza, the defendant was convicted of an offense which carried a penalty of imprisonment and a minimum mandatory fine of one hundred dollars. The judge imposed only the prison sentence and inadvertently failed to impose the fine. Five hours later, the judge recalled the defendant and corrected the error by imposing the additional punishment of a one hundred dollar fine. Bozza stands only for the proposition that an illegal or unauthorized sentence may be corrected during the teim of court in which it was rendered even if the correction results in an increase of the sentence. The holding in Bozza is not inconsistent with the holdings in our cases, cited supra, that a judgment can be amended only during the period prior to the running of the time for appeal.
Relying on the unbroken line of precedents cited in this opinion, Appellant had a legitimate expectation of finality with respect to the judgment of December 8, 1994. The fact that the trial judge may have previously stated in open court his intent to enter a different judgment than the one subsequently entered is of no consequence. The judge, himself, indicated to Appellant when discussing jail credit time that the final judgment would be entered at a later date, as, indeed, it was. Why should Appellant be charged with knowledge that the trial judge did not simply change his mind on the issue of concurrent or consecutive sentences?
The amended judgment was entered without jurisdiction and in violation of Ap*682pellant’s constitutional rights to due process of law and protection against double jeopardy. Accordingly, I would reverse this case and remand it to the Christian Circuit Court with directions to vacate the amended judgment of August 22, 1995 and to reinstate the judgment of December 8, 1994.
LAMBERT, C.J., and STUMBO, J., join this dissenting opinion.