In State v. Jeremy Brian Poe, the Court of Criminal Appeals did not resolve an apparent split of authority among different panels of the Court regarding the standard of review to use when reviewing a trial court’s determination of sentencing classification, but it did resolve one issue in a client’s favor that should result in a significant sentence reduction. Specifically, aggravated burglaries committed within a 24 hour period, as long as they were committed prior to August 19, 2009, will continue to merge into one conviction for determining sentencing range.
Mr. Poe was charged with stealing a Jeep worth more than $10,000, and the jury rejected Mr. Poe’s joyriding defense. While the CCA also rejected the defense arguments about sufficiency (including valuation), it did explore the propriety of Mr. Poe’s sentence. The trial court determined that Mr. Poe was range III because he had five prior qualifying felonies and overruled Mr. Poe’s argument that two aggravated burglaries committed in 2006 should merge because they occurred within a 24-hour period. The trial court instead agreed with the prosecutor that the amendment to the statute exempting aggravated burglary from the merger rule applied even though the statute had only passed in 2009, 3 years after the aggravated burglaries at issue, holding that the defendant “would be sentenced based on the law as it was in existence at the time he committed this offense.”
The Court of Criminal Appeals disagreed, finding clear language in the legislation and in cases interpreting the amendment: