Court Opinion

ID: 9791498
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:12:18.422809+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:36.643325
License: Public Domain

SCHWARTZMAN, Judge,
specially concurring.
Again, I concur in the reasoning and result reached in this opinion, based upon the constraints imposed under the Banks decision; just as I did in State v. Lively, 131 Idaho 279, 281, 954 P.2d 1075, 1077 (Ct.App.1998). But, as Jakoski argues, it matters not the legal path one takes to find himself deprived of freedom; the issue is how long may a defendant have his liberty totally restrained and not receive credit for it. “Jail is still jail, no matter how or what you call it!” Id.
It is also worthy of note that the Idaho Legislature, perhaps in response to the Governor’s Committee of One Recommendations, did amend Idaho Code § 20-228 in 1998 to add the following (here in italics): “Such person so recommitted [on parole revocation] must serve out the sentence, and the time during which such prisoner was out on parole shall not be deemed a part thereof; unless the commission, in its discretion, shall determine otherwise. ...” 1998 Idaho Session Laws, ch. 327, § 2, p. 1057.
If a parolee may now be able to receive some discretionary credit for time actually spent on parole in an unincarcerated status, how much sense does it make to not give a pi'obationee credit for time served while actually incarcerated as a condition of probation? Jakoski has spent a year in the county ‘slammer’ and now must serve the full suspended sentence in the penitentiary, at state expense, without a nickel’s worth of credit for that time. This repeated year hardly appears a fair or wise use of limited state financial resources.