Appellant Pro Se Attorneys for Appellee
Clifton J. Jackson Steve Carter
Bunker Hill, Indiana Attorney General of Indiana
Andrew A. Kobe
Deputy Attorney General
Indianapolis, Indiana
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No. 45S03-0403-CR-122
v.
Appeal from the Lake Superior Court, No. 45G03-9802-CF-32
The Honorable Joan Kouros, Judge
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On Petition To Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 45A03-0305-CR-194
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March 11, 2004
Defendant Clifton J. Jackson appeals from the denial of his motion to correct
sentence, which alleged that the abstract of judgment did not properly credit his
sentence with both time served and credit time. Applying the principles of
Robinson v. State, ___ N.E.2d ___ (Ind. 2004), we affirm the trial court.
A motion to correct sentence may not be used to challenge entries or
omissions in an abstract of judgment.
Following his guilty plea to robbery, a Class B felony, and two counts
of attempted robbery, each as a class B felony, the trial court on
March 20, 2001, sentenced the defendant to three concurrent terms of twenty years.
The appellant's appendix does not contain the sentencing judgment or the abstract
of judgment. The chronological case summary notation of the sentencing judgment includes
only the following reference to credit for time served or credit time: "1132
cr days." The defendant filed a motion to correct sentence on April
3, 2003, with an accompanying memorandum, seeking "an amended abstract of judgment be
forwarded to the Ind. Dept. of Correction, showing . . . 2264 days."
The trial court summarily denied the motion. The Court of Appeals
reversed and remanded for a determination of credit time. Jackson v. State,
799 N.E.2d 551 (Ind. Ct. App. 2003). We grant the
State's petition to transfer.
A motion to correct sentence is available only to correct sentencing errors clear
from the face of the judgment, and is not available to challenge entries
or omissions in an abstract of judgment. Robinson, ___ N.E.2d at ___
(slip opin. at 14). Because the defendant here challenged his abstract
of judgment, not his sentencing judgment, the trial court did not err in
denying the motion to correct sentence.
We further observe that both the State and the defendant agree that he
was incarcerated 1132 days prior to sentencing, the same number noted in the
chronological case summary's notation of "1132 cr days." If the actual sentencing
judgment reports the number of days of confinement before sentencing, this "shall be
understood by courts and by the Department of Correction automatically to award the
number of credit time days equal to the number of pre-sentence confinement days."
Id. at ___ (slip opin. at 11-12).
Transfer is granted. We affirm the judgment of the trial court denying
the defendant's motion to correct sentence.
Shepard, C.J., and Sullivan, Boehm, and Rucker, JJ., concur.