State v. Greene

Summary

The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed a mittimus directing the defendant to serve a twelve-to-forty-eight-month sentence through preapproved furlough in an intensive substance abuse program, with confinement in a correctional facility until an appropriate program placement became available. The court held that the mittimus did not impermissibly increase the sentence or conflict with the plea agreement, and that inconsistent boilerplate language in the original order constituted a clerical error. The court also rejected the defendant’s request to withdraw his plea.

Holdings

1. The later mittimus did not depart from or increase the original sentence because the plea agreement and the substantive portion of the original sentencing order required service through preapproved furlough in the intensive substance abuse program; the inconsistent supervised-community-sentence language was a clerical error.
2. A defendant sentenced to furlough accepts the possibility that the Department of Corrections may revoke or discontinue furlough and require incarceration without a parole-board hearing; directing defendant to begin service in a correctional facility pending a suitable program placement was within the department's statutory authority.
3. Defendant was not entitled to withdraw his plea because the sentence imposed by the later mittimus was the sentence contemplated by the plea agreement, and the record did not show that he sought withdrawal after the challenged mittimus.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the later mittimus impermissibly increased or changed the sentence imposed in the original sentencing order and plea agreement.
2. Whether directing defendant to begin serving the sentence in a correctional facility until an appropriate furlough-program placement became available entitled defendant to withdraw his guilty plea.
3. Whether the original sentencing order's reference to supervised community service controlled over the substantive furlough language incorporated from the plea agreement.

Disposition

affirmed