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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__
In the
Indiana Supreme Court
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No. 45S03-0403-CR-122
Clifton J. Jackson,
Appellant (Petitioner below),
v.
State of Indiana,
Appellee (Plaintiff below).
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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
Dickson, Justice.
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.