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Sentence Credit

By: Derek Hawkins//April 23, 2019//

Sentence Credit

By: Derek Hawkins//April 23, 2019//

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WI Court of Appeals – District IV

Case Name: State of Wisconsin v. Richard H. Harrison, Jr.,

Case No.: 2017AP2440-CR; 2017AP2441-CR

Officials: Sherman, Blanchard and Kloppenburg, JJ.

Focus: Sentence Credit

In these consolidated appeals, the State appeals a circuit court order that awarded Richard Harrison sentence credit, pursuant to WIS. STAT. § 973.155 (2017-18), for the initial confinement time that he served on two convictions that were each vacated while Harrison was then serving the initial confinement portion of the sentence on each respective vacated conviction. The court ordered that the initial confinement time that Harrison served for the two vacated convictions be credited toward extended supervision sentences that Harrison received in two cases that were not vacated and that were unrelated to the cases with the vacated convictions. Harrison was to begin serving the extended supervision time in each unvacated case after he completed serving the initial confinement portions of his sentences for the vacated convictions.

The State contends that the circuit court erred in awarding Harrison sentence credit, because the time Harrison spent serving initial confinement in first one, and then the other, case in which the convictions were subsequently vacated was not time “spent in custody in connection with the course of conduct for which the sentence was imposed” in the non-vacated cases, as required under WIS. STAT. § 973.155. We agree with the State on this point. This case does not involve sentence credit, because the courses of conduct were different between the cases with the ultimately vacated convictions and the cases with the never vacated convictions.

Accordingly, we reverse the circuit court order requiring the Department of Corrections to give Harrison sentence credit for the periods of initial confinement already served in the cases with the vacated convictions to reduce Harrison’s periods of extended supervision in the cases in which the convictions were not vacated. We remand with the direction that the court order DOC to advance the commencement of the valid extended supervision periods in each of the cases in which the conviction was not vacated, so that these extended supervision periods begin on the dates on which Harrison completed serving the initial confinement portions of his sentences in each case in which the conviction was not vacated. In short, DOC is to remove the invalid initial confinement time in the vacated sentences from the calculations, treating those sentences as if they had never been imposed.

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Derek A Hawkins is trademark corporate counsel for Harley-Davidson. Hawkins oversees the prosecution and maintenance of the Harley-Davidson’s international trademark portfolio in emerging markets.

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