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Published by the Indiana Office of Court Services

Brock v. State, No. 79A04-1208-CR-433, __ N.E.2d __ (Ind. Ct. App., Feb. 26, 2013).

February 28, 2013 Filed Under: Criminal Tagged With: Appeals, P. Mathias

Mathias, J.
….
Brock nevertheless claims that he was subject to double enhancement because the  trial court ordered his sentence for intimidation, which was enhanced by the general habitual offender statute, to run consecutively to the sentence for auto theft, which was  elevated under a progressive penalty statute. But this does not mean that the sentence for auto theft was itself enhanced under the general habitual offender statute.
We acknowledge our supreme court’s opinion in Sweatt v. State, 887 N.E.2d 81 (Ind. 2008), but find it readily distinguishable. In Sweatt, the defendant’s SVF conviction and his status as an habitual offender were both based on the same prior rapeconviction. But the habitual offender enhancement was applied to the defendant’s conviction for burglary, not his SVF conviction. Our supreme court held that this “d[id] not . . . create a double enhancement” because the prior rape conviction supported enhancements that operated on separate counts. Id. at 84. However, the court held that “where separate counts are enhanced based on the same prior felony conviction, ordering the sentences to run consecutively has the same effect as if the enhancements both applied to the same count.” Id.
Here, the trial court did order both the sentence on the elevated conviction for auto theft and the enhanced sentence for intimidation to be served consecutively. But here, unlike in Sweatt, these enhancements were not based on the same prior felony conviction. We therefore conclude that Sweatt is not controlling and that the trial court’s imposition of consecutive sentences does not constitute improper double enhancement under the facts and circumstances of the present case.
….
KIRSCH, J., and CRONE, J., concur.

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