David, J.
We granted transfer in this case and a related case, Pebble Stafford v. State of Indiana, — N.E.3d — (Ind. 2019) (“Stafford II”), to resolve conflicting opinions from our Court of Appeals concerning recent amendments to Indiana’s sentence modification statutes. As a matter of statutory interpretation, we find the decades-old rule of sentence modification remains undisturbed: courts may modify a sentence only if the new sentence would not have violated the terms of the valid plea agreement had the new sentence been originally imposed. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s judgment that it was not authorized to modify the sentence imposed under Defendant’s fixed-term plea agreement.
In March 2015, Defendant Alberto Rodriguez was charged with class A misdemeanor operating while intoxicated (“OWI”) and class C misdemeanor operating a vehicle with an alcohol concentration equivalent of .08 or more. Due to prior OWI convictions, Rodriguez was also charged with level 6 felony OWI with a prior conviction and with being a habitual vehicular substance offender (“HVSO”).
Rodriguez entered into a plea agreement on January 6, 2016. In exchange for dismissal of the class C misdemeanor charge, Rodriguez pled guilty to the class A misdemeanor OWI, level 6 felony OWI with a prior conviction, and HVSO charges. The trial court accepted the plea agreement and sentenced Rodriguez according to the plea agreement’s terms: thirty months in Elkhart County work release for merged level 6 felony OWI with a prior conviction and class A misdemeanor OWI charges and an additional forty-two months on work release for the HVSO charge. A hand-written notation on the plea agreement read, “Agreed all time to Work Release no discretion to change.” … This note was incorporated into the trial court’s sentencing order.
On January 12, 2017, Rodriguez petitioned to modify his sentence under Indiana Code section 35-38-1-17(e). At the modification hearing, Rodriguez argued that recent changes to the modification statute— combined with his positive report from work release and his need to be present for his son—supported the court’s ability to modify his sentence. The State opposed Rodriguez’s petition, arguing that courts have no power to modify a sentence once the court has accepted a binding stipulated plea agreement.
The trial court denied Rodriguez’s motion to modify his sentence. The court relied on Indiana Code section 35-38-1-17(l) (2016), which read:
A person may not waive the right to sentence modification under this section as part of a plea agreement. Any purported waiver of the right to sentence modification under this section in a plea agreement is invalid and unenforceable as against public policy. This subsection does not prohibit the finding of a waiver of the right to sentence modification for any other reason, including failure to comply with the provisions of this section.
Emphasis altered from court’s order). …
In a split decision, the Court of Appeals reversed, holding that “modification of Rodriguez’s sentence is permissible under Section 35-38-1-17(l)…” Rodriguez v. State, 91 N.E.3d 1033, 1038 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018), vacated and remanded, 100 N.E.3d 696 (Ind. 2018) (“Rodriguez I”). The court opined that because the legislature amended the modification statute to prohibit explicit waiver of the right to sentence modification in a plea agreement, it was the legislature’s intent “to preserve a defendant’s right to modification of a fixed sentence imposed under a plea agreement.” Id. at 1037-38. …
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The State sought transfer, which we granted. Rodriguez v. State, 100 N.E.3d 696 (Ind. 2018). In a published order, we noted that “[d]uring the 2018 legislative session, the General Assembly amended Indiana Code sections 35-35-1-2 and 35-38-1-17, addressing guilty pleas and the reduction or suspension of a sentence, effective July 1, 2018.” Id. As such, we remanded the case to the Court of Appeals so it could reconsider its opinion in light of the statutory amendments. Id.
On remand, the Court of Appeals reaffirmed its original holding in Rodriguez I, finding that the retroactive application of 2018 amendments to the sentence modification statute violated the contract clause of the Federal Constitution. Rodriguez v. State, 116 N.E.3d 515, 524 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018) (“Rodriguez II”). …
The State sought transfer, which we granted, thereby vacating the Court of Appeals opinion. Ind. Appellate Rule 58(A).
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Discussion and Decision
The genesis of these proceedings came as a result of the legislature’s 2014 amendments to Indiana Code section 35-38-1-17. Combined with subsequent amendments to the same statutory scheme in 2016 and 2018, courts and practitioners alike were thrown into uncertain territory over whether defendants who entered into a fixed-term plea agreement could now petition for sentence modification despite the terms of their agreement. Our own Court of Appeals in Rodriguez II and Stafford II charted no less than four possible paths forward to interpret the same statutory provisions.
We resolve this split in interpretations today and conclude that the legislature’s amendments did not change course from the previously accepted view of sentence modification in Indiana. …
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No matter the type of plea bargained for by the defendant and the State, plea agreements are contractual in nature. Lee v. State, 816 N.E.2d 35, 38 (Ind. 2004). As such, the State, defendant, and trial court become bound by the agreement’s terms once the plea is accepted by the court. Pannarale, 638 N.E.2d at 1248 (citing Ind. Code § 35-35-3-3(e) (1993)).
These underlying principles formed the basis for this Court’s earlier decisions in Goldsmith and Pannarale. Those opinions found that once an agreement is accepted by the court, “a deal is a deal” and “the sentencing court possesses only that degree of discretion provided in the plea agreement with regard to imposing an initial sentence or altering it later.” Pannarale, 638 N.E.2d at 1248 (emphasis added). If a defendant who is sentenced pursuant to the terms of a plea agreement later petitions for modification of his or her sentence, “the trial court retains the authority to modify a sentence so long as the modified sentence would not have violated the plea agreement had it been the sentence originally imposed.” Id. at 1249.
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The language of Indiana Code section 35-35-3-3(e) is straightforward: a court is bound by the terms of the plea agreement at the time it accepts the plea. This provision is implicitly recognized in the language of Indiana Code section 35-38-1-17(e) (2016), which only allows a court to reduce or suspend a sentence in a way in which it was authorized at the time of sentencing. …
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This view also reinforces the well-established principle that plea agreements are contractual in nature. See Lee, 816 N.E.2d at 38. When the trial court accepted Rodriguez’s plea agreement, it—along with Rodriguez and the State—became bound by the terms of the agreement. … We agree with the State that an interpretation allowing for modification of a valid plea agreement that allows no sentencing discretion frustrates the State’s benefit of the bargain and would throw the terms of many other plea agreements into uncertainty. We do not think that the legislature intended such a change and find no such intent here today.
Conclusion
Understanding that the legislature’s amendments did not alter the settled law of Pannarale and its progeny, the trial court appropriately found it had no discretion to modify Rodriguez’s sentence because it was bound by the terms of the valid plea agreement.
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
Chief Justice Rush and Justices Massa, Slaughter, and Goff concur.