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COURT OF APPEALS DECISION DATED AND FILED April 22, 2014 Diane M. Fremgen Clerk of Court of Appeals |
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NOTICE |
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This opinion is subject to further editing. If published, the official version will appear in the bound volume of the Official Reports. A party may file with the Supreme Court a petition to review an adverse decision by the Court of Appeals. See Wis. Stat. § 808.10 and Rule 809.62. |
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Appeal No. |
Cir. Ct. No. 2007CF5884 |
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STATE OF WISCONSIN |
IN COURT OF APPEALS |
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DISTRICT I |
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State of Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Jamie L. Williams, Defendant-Appellant. |
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APPEAL from an order of the circuit court for Milwaukee County: JONATHAN D. WATTS, Judge. Affirmed.
Before Curley, P.J., Fine and Kessler, JJ.
¶1 PER CURIAM. Jamie L. Williams appeals an order denying him sentence credit for 118
days that he spent in custody before his sentencing in this case. Because Williams received credit for the 118
days toward his service of a reconfinement term imposed in another case, and
because he is not entitled to duplicative credit against his consecutive sentence
in this case, we affirm.
¶2 The
relevant facts are undisputed. Williams
was serving a term of extended supervision imposed in Milwaukee County case No.
2003CF2989 when police arrested him on November 28, 2007. The arrest led both to the revocation of his
extended supervision in case No. 2003CF2989 and to a new charge in the instant
case. While the charge in this case was
pending, he returned to circuit court on March 26, 2008, for a reconfinement
hearing in case No. 2003CF2989. At that
hearing, the circuit court ordered Williams reconfined for two years and
further ordered that he receive presentence incarceration credit for “all the
days that [he] ha[d] been in custody.”
Soon thereafter, Williams resolved the instant case with a guilty
plea. At sentencing in May 2008, the
circuit court imposed a nine-year term of imprisonment and ordered Williams to
serve the sentence consecutively to the reconfinement term imposed in case No. 2003CF2989.
¶3 Williams
sought sentence credit in the instant case for the 118-day period he spent in
custody from November 28, 2007, through March 26, 2008. The circuit court denied relief on the ground
that Williams had already received credit for the 118 days against his reconfinement
term. Williams appeals.
¶4 “A
convicted offender shall be given credit toward the service of his or her
sentence for all days spent in custody in connection with the course of conduct
for which sentence was imposed.” Wis. Stat. § 973.155(1)(a)
(2011-12).[1] Wisconsin courts have developed a body of
case law applying the statute in various circumstances. See
State
v. Tuescher, 226 Wis. 2d 465, 471-72, 595 N.W.2d 443 (Ct. App.
1999). Whether a defendant is entitled
to sentence credit under § 973.155 is a question of law that we review
independently of the circuit court. State
v. Lange, 2003 WI App 2, ¶41, 259 Wis. 2d 774, 656 N.W.2d 480.
¶5 Williams
does not dispute that he received credit toward the service of the reconfinement
term imposed in case No. 2003CF2989 for his time in custody from November 28,
2007, through March 26, 2008. In his
view, however, he is also entitled to receive credit for that time in custody
toward the service of his consecutive sentence in the instant case because, he
argues, the custody “was at least in part due to the conduct” underlying his
conviction in this matter. He is wrong.
¶6 Our supreme court long ago endorsed the proposition that “‘[t]he objective with consecutive sentences is to assure that credit is awarded against one, but only one, of the consecutive sentences.’” See State v. Boettcher, 144 Wis. 2d 86, 101, 423 N.W.2d 533 (1988) (citation omitted). The Boettcher court explained:
[w]e are satisfied, from the purpose of the statute and particularly the absence of any language even suggesting the possibility of dual credits where consecutive sentences are imposed, that the public policy behind the statute impels the conclusion we reach here: That custody credits should be applied in a mathematically linear fashion. The total time in custody should be credited on a day-for-day basis against the total days imposed in the consecutive sentences.
Id. at 100.
¶7 Boettcher
bars Williams from receiving the dual credit he requests. Therefore, we affirm.
By
the Court.—Order affirmed.
This opinion will not be published. See Wis. Stat. Rule 809.23(1)(b)5.