Vaidik, CJ.
Corey Bullock was charged with three counts relating to the death of his girlfriend’s infant daughter: murder, aggravated battery, and neglect of a dependent. The jury hung on the murder count but found him guilty on the other counts. Following the trial court’s declaration of a mistrial on the murder count, the court allowed the State to retry Bullock on all three counts, and the court found him guilty of murder and neglect in a bench trial.
Bullock now appeals, arguing that the trial court entered judgment of conviction after the first trial and the State was therefore barred from retrying him according to the statutory double-jeopardy principles discussed by the Indiana Supreme Court in Cleary v. State, 23 N.E.3d 664 (Ind. 2015). Although there are Chronological Case Summary (CCS) entries from the last day of the jury trial that include the word “Judgment,” the court clarified shortly thereafter that it had not actually entered judgment of conviction. Because there was no judgment of conviction, the State was not barred from retrying Bullock on all three counts. We therefore affirm the trial court.
….
… Indiana Code 35-41-4-3(a) provides that a prosecution is barred if (1) there was a former prosecution of the defendant “based on the same facts and for commission of the same offense” and (2) “the former prosecution resulted in an acquittal or a conviction of the defendant (A conviction of an included offense constitutes an acquittal of the greater offense, even if the conviction is subsequently set aside.).” (Emphases added). Our Supreme Court found no statutory double-jeopardy violation in Cleary because the trial court had not entered judgment of conviction on Counts IV and V … Our Supreme Court explained that a guilty verdict and a judgment of conviction are “two rather different things.” In other words, a guilty verdict is only a significant legal event “if a court later enters judgment on it.” Because the trial court had not entered judgment of conviction on the lesser included offenses, our Supreme Court found that retrial was permissible.
A hearing on Bullock’s motion to dismiss was held in December 2016. At the hearing, the trial court asked defense counsel how she could “defeat Cleary.” Defense counsel responded that “even though judgment of conviction wasn’t formally entered,” it had been for “all intents and purposes.” Defense counsel argued that the November 2 CCS entries coupled with the fact that the trial court had file stamped the signed jury-verdict forms for Counts II and III had “the effect of judgment of conviction.” …
….
Bullock’s argument, however, fails at the start because we find that the trial court did not enter judgment of conviction after the first trial.…Notably, the parties did not ask the trial court to enter judgment of conviction, the court did not orally do so, and there is no written judgment doing so (even though the CCS says that there is). The court then scheduled a “pretrial conference,” which indicates that it was contemplating the possibility of a second trial.…
Moreover, at the motion-to-dismiss hearing, defense counsel conceded that judgment of conviction hadn’t been “formally entered.” The court then clarified that it had not entered judgment of conviction, notwithstanding the November 2 CCS entries.
Nevertheless, Bullock claims that because we have said the CCS is an official record of the trial court and the court speaks through its docket, see Caruthers v. State, 58 N.E.3d 207, 210 n.2 (Ind. Ct. App. 2016), we should “find the CCS accurately reflected what happened in the trial court,” … But even if we were to treat the November 2 CCS entries as an entry of judgment, the trial court made clear that it was a mistaken entry because it did not actually enter judgment of conviction, and Bullock cites no authority that would prevent the court from going back and fixing its mistake. See Ind. Trial Rule 60(A) … It is true that Cleary provides that had the trial court “entered a judgment of conviction” for the lesser-included offenses, the State would have been barred from retrying the defendant on the greater offenses. 23 N.E.3d at 668. … The Court did not say that retrial is barred if judgment of conviction is erroneously entered but then quickly vacated. Therefore, even if it could be said that the November 2 CCS entries in this case amounted to an entry of judgment by the trial court on Counts II and III, the court promptly vacated that judgment, and the State was not barred from retrying Bullock on Counts I-III.
Affirmed.
Pyle, J., and Barnes, Sr. J., concur.