Viers v. Commonwealth

Summary

The Supreme Court of Kentucky held that a trial court could not amend a written criminal judgment under RCr 10.10 to remove jail-time credit when the original judgment accurately reflected the oral sentence. The court distinguished a clerical error, which may be corrected to make a written judgment conform to the oral judgment, from a judicial error based on incomplete or inaccurate information. The court reversed the Court of Appeals and remanded with directions to vacate the amended judgment.

Holdings

1. An error is clerical only when the amended judgment embodies and accurately reflects the trial court's oral judgment as revealed in the record, such as by correcting language inconsistent with the oral judgment or supplying language inadvertently omitted from it. If the amended judgment does not reflect the oral judgment, the error is judicial rather than clerical.
2. The trial court erred in amending the judgment under RCr 10.10 to remove Viers's jail-time credit because the amendment did not reflect the oral judgment rendered at sentencing.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the trial court had authority under RCr 10.10 to amend the judgment and remove Viers's jail-time credit as correction of a clerical error.
2. Whether an amendment that changes a written judgment accurately reflecting the oral judgment is a clerical error or a judicial error.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded