Court Opinion

ID: 9610964
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:49:45.728674+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:07.590117
License: Public Domain

Rhodes, Justice
(dissenting) :
The majority opinion holds that the circuit court erred in ordering the Board to disregard the inactive sentences of respondents in computing their eligibility for parole. I disagree. The sentence imposed by the lower court as to each respondent was identical, and is summarized in the agreed statement as follows: “five (5) years consecutive, suspended with a special condition of probation that the sentence was to be effective on release from [the active six-year sentence] .” 1 The use of “consecutive” and “suspended” in connection with the same sentence is inconsistent. This court has held in Richards v. Crump, 260 S. C. 133, 194 S. E. (2d) 575 (1973) that
[w]hen a judge suspends a sentence, he in effect says to the defendant, “You will not be required at this time to serve your sentence, but you may go free ‘during good behavior’.”
*744In consecutive sentences, the defendant is not permitted to be at liberty. The sentence is not suspended, it is merely deferred through the fault of the defendant.
Id. at 136-37, 194 S. E. (2d) at 576.
In State v. DeAngelis, 257 S. C. 44, 183 S. E. (2d) 906 (1971), we held that “[ajmbiguity or doubts relative to a sentence should be resolved in favor of the accused.” Id. at 50, 183 S. E. (2d) at 909. DeAngelis further holds that in cases of ambiguity of a sentence, the intent of the sentencing judge is controlling. In the case at bar, the sentencing judge has unmistakably stated his intent as being in accord with the position of respondents. In accordance with these principles, the sentence imposed by the circuit court must be read as an active six-year term of imprisonment followed by a five-year suspended sentence conditioned only on five years probation.
While Picklesimer v. State, 254 S. C. 596, 176 S. E. (2d) 536 (1970), upon which the majority places its reliance, held that the suspended portions of an imposed sentence were .to be included for purposes of computing parole eligibility, it limits such a holding to sentences which are not suspended in their entirety but, on the contrary, are only partially suspended. This clear intent of Picklesimer is manifested in its concluding paragraph:
We hold that when a person is sentenced to a term of years, and the sentence is suspended after the service of a portion of that term, under the 1963 amendment an application for parole may be made only after service of one-third of the entire sentence. (Emphasis added.)
Id. at 600, 176 S. E. (2d) at 538. I do not believe that Picklesimer can logically be extended to sentences no portion of which requires the service of active time.
For the foregoing reasons, I am of the opinion that the order appealed from should be affirmed.

 The original sentences have not been made a part of the record. The trial judge’s order states that respondents were placed on five years probation as a part of the sentence in question, which fact is implicit in the above quote from the agreed statement.