Court Opinion

ID: 9505500
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 20:05:35.107243+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:32.401444
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Justice,
concurring in result.
I believe the proper application of Kendrick to the case before us is demonstrat*448ed by our opinion in Buell v. State, 668 N.E.2d 251 (Ind.1996), reh'g denied, and Chief Judge Sharpnack's opinion in Kiswick v. State, 706 N.E.2d 592 (Ind.Ct.App.1999), transfer denied.
The Kendrick case was an appeal of a judgment denying permission to withdraw a guilty plea. The defendant had pled guilty to one of several counts pending in a single case in Marion Superior Court, Division One. At the time of the plea, there were other charges pending against the defendant in another division of the Marion Superior Court, but those charges were not noted in the plea agreement or the plea proceeding in Division One. The Division One court accepted the plea but did not advise the defendant of the possibility that he could receive consecutive sentences for the charge covered by the plea and the charges pending in the other division. An advisement as to the possibility of any consecutive sentences was required by statute. Kendrick, 529 N.E.2d at 1311.
Kendrick later sought to withdraw the guilty plea made in Division One because of the lack of any advice that as a consequence of the plea, he would face the possibility that later sentences in the other division could be imposed consecutive to the one he would then be serving.
At the time Kendrick was decided, the imposition of consecutive sentences was controlled by a statute that provided, "the court shall determine whether terms of imprisonment shall be served concurrently or consecutively." Ind.Code § 35-50-1-2(a) (1988).1 We held that the authority given trial courts by this language to be "restrictive." Kendrick, 529 N.E.2d at 1312. A trial court could impose consecutive sentences only (1) when it had a mandatory duty to do so under Ind.Code § 35-50-1-2(b) or (2) "when a court [was] meting out two or more terms of imprisonment." Id. We said, "If a court is contemporaneously imposing two or more sentences, it is granted the general statutory authority to order them to be served consecutive to one another." Id.
We held that because the Division One court was not meting out two or more terms of imprisonment, it had had no authority to impose consecutive sentences and therefore no duty to advise the defendant of the possibility thereof. Id.
While the result in Kendrick was that the defendant was denied his request to set aside his guilty plea, the implication was that a court, except where expressly required to do so by statute, could not impose a sentence consecutive to one imposed by another court at another time. Two cases decided in 1990 confirmed that. Seay v. State 550 N.E.2d 1284, 1286 (Ind.1990); Bartruff v. State, 553 N.E.2d 485, 487-88 (Ind.1990).
To return to Davidson's case, I acknowledge that "contemporaneously imposing" language of Kendrick, Seay, and Bartruff could lead one to the conclusion that had Davidson been tried separately, the trial courts in each of the separate cases would have been unable to impose sentences consecutive to those imposed in the other cases. But this would give the contemporaneity requirement too literal an interpretation, as subsequent cases have made clear.
The first of these cases is Buell v. State, 668 N.E.2d 251 (Ind.1996), reh'g denied. The defendant had been found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and confinement *449but the jury could not reach a verdict on several additional counts including murder and conspiracy and the court declared a mistrial on those other counts. The trial court proceeded to impose consecutive sentences for the voluntary manslaughter and confinement convictions. Id. at 252.
A second jury subsequently found the defendant guilty of murder and conspiracy and the trial court imposed sentences on those counts, to run consecutive to each other and to the sentences earlier imposed. Id.
On appeal, the defendant argued that under Kendrick, the trial court was not authorized to order that the sentences from the second trial be served consecutive to those imposed in the first. Id. We found that to be too near-sighted a reading of Kendrick:
Unlike the situation in Kendrick, the judge in this case imposed consecutive sentences for closely related offenses that were first charged in the same information and all tried in the same court. But for the hung jury and subsequent mistrial, the court would have sentenced [the defendant] on all counts contemporaneously. We agree with the State that the rule of Kendrick does not apply. The court was authorized to impose consecutive sentences.
Id.
The second of these cases is Elswick v. State where the defendant appealed his sentence for conspiracy to commit murder. 706 N.E.2d 592 (Ind.Ct.App.1999), transfer denied.
While jailed awaiting trial for the murder of one man and the attempted murder of another man named Kyle, the defendant attempted to arrange the murder of witness-victim Kyle. In separate jury trials before Judge Duffin, the defendant was first convicted on the murder and attempted murder charges, for which he was sentenced to consecutive terms. He was then convicted of conspiracy to murder Kyle, for which he was sentenced consecutive to the sentences for murder and attempted murder. Id. at 593.
The defendant claimed that under Kendrick, Judge Duffin lacked authority to order his sentence for conspiracy to run consecutively to his prior convictions. Id.
In an opinion written by Chief Judge Sharpnack, the Court of Appeals found that Kendrick did not control:
In each of the cases applying Kendrick, the trial court ordered a sentence to run consecutively to a sentence imposed at a different time, as in the case before us. However, in those cases the consecutive sentence was either tacked onto a sentence for an unrelated crime or was imposed by a different court. Here, the conspiracy conviction was closely related to [the defendant's] convictions for murder and attempted murder. Had [the defendant] succeeded in his conspiracy, he well might have avoided conviction of murder and attempted murder and would have accomplished the previously attempted murder of Kyle. In addition, the trial judge imposing the sentences presided over both trials.
Id. at 594.
The Court of Appeals concluded that the principles enunciated in Buel! applied:
Unlike Kendrick and its progeny, the two causes here were closely related sharing a strong factual connection. Furthermore, because he had tried both cases, the facts of each case were before Judge Duffin when he ordered the consecutive sentence. Therefore, we hold that, under Buell, the trial court was within its discretion under Ind.Code § 35-50-1-2(a) to order [the defendant's] sentence for conspiracy to commit murder to run consecutively to his *450sentences for murder and attempted murder.
Id. at 595.
I believe that Buell and Elswick make clear that Davidson is not entitled to sentencing relief, The charges upon which the sentences at issue were imposed are of similar character and were charged in the same information. Even had Davidson been tried separately, there is no reason to think that he would not have been tried in the same court before the same judge. These factors indicate that the Kendrick rule is not applicable here.
SHEPARD, C.J. ., concurs.

. This statute has been substantially amended such the interpretation given it in Kendrick no longer applies. See Berry v. State, 689 N.E.2d 444, 446 (Ind.1997); Weaver v. State, 664 N.E.2d 1169, 1170-71 (Ind.1996).