Court Opinion

ID: 9744511
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:04:53.772423+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:49.763481
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
The majority appears to place some significance upon our Supreme Court’s use of the word “sentence” in the same context as the word “punishment” when considering the sentence imposed. See Buchanan v. State, 767 N.E.2d 967, 973 (Ind.2002). I do not agree that the words chosen in that case have meaningful significance because in that case the court was not considering a sentence which was suspended in part. Rather the court was considering a maximum fifty-year executed sentence imposed for a Class A felony. Therefore, the “punishment” was the same as the “sentence.”
Nevertheless, in this regard, I am inclined to agree that as stated in Judge May’s separate concurrence in Beck v. State, 790 N.E.2d 520 (Ind.Ct.App.2003) and as cited by the majority, a 365 day sentence for a Class A misdemeanor, “whether suspended or served in the Department of Correction, is the ‘maximum sentence.’ A year is still a year, and a sentence is still a sentence.” at 523. To be sure, a suspended maximum sentence is less onerous in its penal impact upon a defendant than a fully executed sentence, but it is not a sentence for less than the maximum number of years called for by statute.7
In the case before us, in Case 414, Cox received the maximum one-year sentence for the Resisting Law Enforcement as a Class A misdemeanor and maximum three-year sentence for the Class D felony, Attempted Residential Entry. One year of the latter sentence was suspended. The record contains a request by counsel that the trial court consider giving less than the presumptive sentence.8 See Pickens v. State, 767 N.E.2d 530 (Ind.2002).
*907However, the court did not indicate that it was considering imposing less than the presumptive sentence despite that recommendation. Furthermore, the court did not indicate it was considering less than the full three-year sentence for the Class D felony, even though it was considering and did in fact suspend a portion thereof.9 Accordingly, I do not believe that the depreciation of the seriousness of the offense aggravator is applicable as contemplated in Ajabu v. State, 722 N.E.2d 339 (Ind.2000).
For the above reasons I do not agree with the majority that it was appropriate to consider as an aggravator that to give less than the maximum sentence would depreciate the seriousness of the crime. Nevertheless, consideration of this factor does not warrant reversal of the sentence because the court appropriately considered that Cox was in violation of a protective order when he committed this offense and that his pattern of conduct was persistent.
Subject to the separate observations set forth herein, I concur in affirmance of the sentences imposed as per the oral sentencing order and for remand in order to reconcile the abstract of judgment accordingly.

. The trial court seems to have viewed the matter of a suspended sentence in much the same light as does the majority in its discussion of Beck v. State, supra. The trial court stated that as to the Attempted Residential Entry conviction, "a totally suspended sentence would depreciate the seriousness of the crime....” at 523.

. This is premised upon counsel’s request that Naylor be sentenced to one year upon the Class D felony and six months for the Class A misdemeanor. As to the misdemeanor, the governing statute I.C. § 35-50-3-2 does not provide for a presumptive sentence but only that the sentence shall not exceed one year.

. The sentence imposed, the maximum for each conviction, was precisely the sentence recommendation made by the State even to the extent that the State recommended suspension of one year on the three year Class D felony sentence.