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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed Friday that a Lake County man’s request to put his credit time from a previous charge toward his current child molesting sentence was properly denied.
In the case of Billy D. Glover v. State of Indiana, 21A-CR-767, Billy Glover pleaded guilty to Level 4 felony child molesting in exchange for the dismissal of Level 6 felony sexual battery charges in a different case regarding a different child. The Lake Superior Court granted Glover 481 days of credit time for the pretrial confinement on the latter charge on which he was sentenced.
Glover appealed, arguing his previous 168-day pretrial confinement for the dismissed charges should also be credited toward his term of imprisonment for the subsequent child molesting conviction.
But a panel of appellate judges disagreed, affirming that the trial court was correct in its denial of his request.
The Court of Appeals first noted that the test remains whether the confinement was the result of the criminal charge for which the sentence was imposed.
“Here, unlike in (Purdue v. State, 51 N.E.3d 432 (Ind. Ct. App. 2016)), Glover was not being detained on both the dismissed and sentenced charges at the same time, so he is not eligible for credit for the confinement related to the dismissed charges,” Judge Derek Molter wrote for the appellate court.
The panel also rejected Glover’s argument that by not crediting him with the 168-day confinement period, he will never receive credit for that time because the associated charges have since been dismissed.
“But credit time does not work like store credit where it can be redeemed with the next crime. Instead, credit time protects against double jeopardy by precluding two punishments — first pre-conviction confinement and then post-conviction confinement — for the same offense,” Molter wrote. “And it protects against disparate treatment.”
Because his 168-day confinement completely predated the arrest for the charge on which Glover was sentenced, the COA affirmed the denial of Glover’s request and found no error by the trial court.
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