Vaidik, C.J.
While high on methamphetamine and fleeing from police, Brian Paquette collided with two other vehicles, killing three people and seriously injuring another. The State filed nine charges against Paquette with regard to the deceased victims: three counts each of resisting law enforcement by fleeing in a vehicle causing death, operating a vehicle with methamphetamine in his blood causing death, and reckless homicide. Paquette agreed to plead guilty to all nine charges but reserved the right to argue that only one conviction and sentence for resisting (the most serious charge, a Level 3 felony) should be entered because all three deaths resulted from a single act of resisting. The trial court rejected that argument and entered three convictions and three consecutive sentences on the resisting counts (and merged the remaining, lower level counts). Paquette appeals, renewing his argument. …
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Paquette contends that Indiana’s resisting-law-enforcement statute, Indiana Code section 35-44.1-3-1, allows only a single resisting conviction under the facts of this case and that the trial court therefore erred by entering three convictions and sentences against him. The interpretation of a statute is a question of law that we review de novo. State v. Smith, 71 N.E.3d 368, 370 (Ind. 2017). We agree with Paquette’s reading of the statute and remand this matter for the entry of a revised judgment and sentence.
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Notwithstanding this longstanding interpretation of the resisting-law enforcement statute, the State contends that we should read the statute to allow for multiple resisting convictions where a single act of resistance leads to the injury or death of multiple people. We decline to do so. Compare the resisting statute to the operating-while-intoxicated-causing-death statute, Indiana Code section 9-30-5-5. Subsection (d) of that statute provides that a person who violates it “commits a separate offense for each [victim] whose death is caused by the violation[.]” The General Assembly added that provision to the statute after this Court held, and our Supreme Court agreed, that without such a provision, the operating-while-intoxicated statutes did not permit multiple convictions even where the defendant caused multiple injuries or deaths. P.L. 53-1994, § 6; see also Kelly v. State, 527 N.E.2d 1148 (Ind. Ct. App. 1988), aff’d, 539 N.E.2d 25 (Ind. 1989).
The legislature added a similar provision to the arson statute, Indiana Code section 35-43-1-1, after our Supreme Court held that the former version allowed only one arson conviction regardless of the number of people injured. See Ind. Code § 35-43-1-1(e) (“A person who commits an offense under subsection (a), (b), (c), or (d) commits a separate offense for each person who suffers a bodily injury or serious bodily injury that is caused by the violation of subsection (a), (b), (c), or (d).”) (added by P.L. 1582013, § 452); see also Mathews v. State, 849 N.E.2d 578 (Ind. 2006). The legislature has thus far decided not to add such a provision to the resisting statute, and we will not read one into it.
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Because Paquette engaged in only one act of resisting, he can be convicted and sentenced on only one count of resisting law enforcement. We therefore reverse the judgment of the trial court and remand this matter for the entry of a revised judgment. Paquette acknowledges that two of the three convictions and sentences for resisting can be replaced by two convictions and sentences for operating a vehicle with methamphetamine in his blood causing death. As already discussed, the statute establishing that crime, unlike the resisting statute, specifically allows for multiple convictions based on a single act of operating a vehicle. See Ind. Code § 9-30-5-5(d). On remand, then, the trial court should enter convictions under that statute for two of the three deceased victims and resentence Paquette accordingly.
Reversed and remanded.
Robb, J., concurs.
Bailey, J., concurs in result without separate opinion.