Court Opinion

ID: 9714803
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:46:04.762714+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:28.762506
License: Public Domain

ON CRIMINAL PETITION TO TRANSFER
GIVAN, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion in this case. The judge who sentenced appellant on his plea of guilty was the same judge who heard the post-convietion relief petition.
We previously have held that it is not necessary to advise a defendant pleading guilty that his prior criminal history can be used to enhance his sentence unless those prior convictions reflect directly on the sentence. Silvers v. State (1986), Ind., 499 N.E.2d 249. In accepting appellant's plea of guilty, the trial judge informed him that he could receive the maximum of twenty (20) years on his sentence.
At the time he pronounced sentence, he stated that in committing the crime the defendant had threatened to use a deadly weapon and that the victim was a 14-year-old child who will bear psychological scars as a result of the crime perpetrated upon her.
At the post-conviction relief hearing, the trial judge stated that in sentencing appellant he had used the nature of the crime and the effect on the victim as his reasons for enhancing the sentence. Under the circumstances, I can find no justification to remand this case for consideration of appellant's petition for post-conviction relief.
I would deny transfer without opinion.