Court Opinion

ID: 9724316
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:52:34.213719+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:59.235014
License: Public Domain

BARNES, Judge,
concurring in result.
I write to concur in result, noting that I am in full accord with all parts of the majority opinion, except where it agrees with another panel of this court's opinion in Jenkins. I believe that the interpretation Judge May first gave in her concurrence in Beck, ie. that "A year is still a year, and a sentence is still a sentence," is the most legally sound manner in which to assess a sentence.
The Jenkins opinion and Judge Kirseh's dissent in Eaton certainly make valid points regarding the substantial difference between suspended and executed sentences. A suspended sentence, at least initially, offers a defendant the chance to sleep in his or her own bed and go about his or her life with a greater degree of normaley.5 Still, I cannot ignore the fact that thousands of criminal defendants have *961their probation revoked, and that in many of these cases, the entire suspended portion of their sentence is imposed. Trial courts have vast discretion in deciding whether to revoke a defendant's probation for violation of any single term of probation, including for relatively minor violations that do not involve the commission of a new offense. See, eg., Podlusky v. State, 889 N.E.2d 198 (Ind.Ct.App.2005) (affirming revocation of probation and imposition of previously-suspended two-year sentence, where notice of probation violation was filed five days after defendant left treatment facility and failed to inform probation department that she had moved back to her apartment, the address for which the probation department had). Trial courts are not required to impose draconian punishments for minor probation violations, but they are entitled to do so. Given our highly deferential abuse of discretion standard of review, such revocations are likely to withstand appellate scrutiny. A defendant generally is stuek-period. So be it.
Most importantly, however, direct appeal after sentencing is a defendant's one and only opportunity to challenge his or her sentence under Appellate Rule 7(B). Simply put, "a defendant cannot collaterally attack a sentence on appeal from a probation revocation." Stephens v. State, 818 N.E.2d 936, 939 (Ind.2004). The original length of a sentence cannot be challenged under Rule 7(B) after a defendant's probation is revoked and a previously-suspended sentenced is ordered to be executed. See Jones v. State, 885 N.E.2d 1286, 1290 (Ind.2008). Sanctions after probation revocation are reviewed only for an abuse of discretion. Id. Thus, under Jenkins, a defendant who receives a suspended sentence and who challenged that sentence on direct appeal but later has his or her probation revoked is in a worse position than a defendant who initially received an executed sentence with no suspension, but who was able to fully challenge the appropriateness of that sentence on direct appeal. Additionally, under the Jenkins approach a defendant might choose to completely forgo his or her right to an appellate challenge of a sentence if it is largely or entirely a suspended sentence.
I also believe that Jenkins and the majority opinion are inconsistent with Mask v. State, 829 N.E.2d 932 (Ind.2005). It is true, as is noted in Jenkins, that Mask decided an issue different than the one before us. Namely, Mask addressed whether any suspended portion of a sentence must be considered a period of "incarceration" or "imprisonment" for purposes of Indiana Code Section 35-50-1-2(c), which limits the total "period of imprisonment" that may be imposed for multiple non-violent offenses arising from an episode of criminal conduct. The Mask opinion states,
Incarceration in the context of subsection (c) does not mean the period of executed time alone. A suspended sentence differs from an executed sentence only in that the period of incarceration is delayed unless, and until, a court orders the time served in prison. See Beck v. State, 790 N.E.2d 520, 523 (Ind.Ct.App.2003) (Mattingly-May, J., concurring in result). In other words, the imposition of a suspended sentence leaves open the real possibility that an individual will be "sent to incarceration for some period" before being released from any penal obligation. This commonly occurs when probation or parole is revoked, and a defendant who received probation or parole is subject to incarceration until released.
Mask, 829 N.E.2d at 936. Although Mask is not directly on point here, it is telling that our supreme court saw fit to cite *962Judge May's separate concurrence in Beck with approval and as support for the general proposition that for legal purposes, suspended sentences should be treated no differently than executed sentences.
I do not have any sympathy for conviet-ed defendants who violate reasonable terms of probation. However, it seems to me that we best discharge our constitutional sentencing review prerogative by considering a sentence in its entirety, and as if any suspended portion of that sentence would be imposed. For these reasons, I would not follow the reasoning of my colleagues in the majority and in Jenkins, and I believe that when reviewing a sentence on appeal, we should treat a fully or partially suspended sentence no differently than a fully executed sentence. In other words, I would review Davidson's 545-day sentence as a 545-day sentence, without regard for the fact that a majority of that sentence was suspended to probation. This is Davidson's one chance for full appellate review of the 545-day sentence, and I would provide it to him. That said, I do not believe the trial court abused its discretion in sentencing Davidson or that his sentence is inappropriate.

. I am speaking here of a sentence suspended to probation where the defendant is free to return to his or her residence without restriction. Community corrections and similar programs, such as home detention and work release, are "a hybrid between conditions of probation for a suspended sentence and executed sentence punishments." See Tubbs v. State, 888 N.E.2d 814, 816 (Ind.Ct.App.2008). Community corrections and home detention have been described as "material punitive obligations." Id.