New law alters felons' 'credit' for time served

4-3-2010 Indiana:

When Raymond Jeremy Wimber is sentenced next month to multiple charges of child molesting, the 40-year-old will have to serve about 85 percent of his 60-year sentence.

That's because Wimber is classified as a credit-restricted felon under new legislation that took effect July 1, 2008, which means instead of the customary day-for-day good time credit, he will get credit for every six days that he serves.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys are beginning to see more of these cases, which is causing them to look at the cases more carefully. A person is considered a credit-restricted felon if they have been convicted of one of the following:

n Child molesting involving sexual intercourse or deviate sexual conduct if the offense is committed by a person at least 21 years of age and the victim is less than 12 years of age

n Child molesting resulting in serious bodily injury or death

n Murder if the person killed the victim while committing or attempting to commit child molesting, the victim was the victim of a sex crime or the victim of the murder was listed by the state or known by the person to be a witness against the person in a prosecution for a sex crime and the murder was committed with the intent of preventing that person from testifying.

Susan Wilkie, a deputy prosecuting attorney for Vanderburgh County, handles child-related cases dealing with sexual and physical abuse and neglect for the prosecutor's office. Wilkie, who joined the office in November, said she first learned of the legislation from a police officer, so she began researching it.

"It's probably something all the attorneys heard about when it was passed, but it doesn't come up very often," she said. "... It's something I'll have to keep in mind charging things. If I was going to plea bargain with someone, I'd certainly keep that in mind."

Wilkie said most of the cases her office handles soon will fit under the new guidelines.

"Once it applies, the sentencing report is going to come back and say this is credit-restricted time." she said.

Somewhere along the line, legislators decided there were two things they weren't going to put up with — murder and child molesting, Wilke said.

"It underscores the importance we put on these particular types of crime," she said. "The Legislature has reinforced they mean business about it. That's the message I get."

Steve Owens, chief public defender in Vanderburgh County, has sent out a memorandum in the last few weeks to the attorneys in his office reminding them to look at the law and make sure they understand it.

"We haven't seen a whole bunch of it up until this point because it only applies to offenses that occurred after July of '08, so some of that stuff hasn't winded itself through the system yet," he said.

Owens said he understands the Legislature wants to take violent offenders off the street, but he doesn't know about the legislation's long-term effect.

"If you look at recent articles on prison populations throughout the country, there has been a decline ... except for Indiana which is up 5.3 percent," he said.

"So it ... concerns me. If we keep locking these people up, who's going to pay — you and me?"

Owens has mixed emotions about the legislation.

"Like most citizens, I don't want violent people running around, but I do wonder if this statute is going to serve the purpose they think it's going to serve and whether there's any statistics for whether we're just going to be incarcerating a whole bunch of people for a longer period of time at a greater cost than we already have," he said.

He said defense attorneys will have to do better negotiations in these type of cases.

"If I had one of those cases, it's going to impact the way I look at that case," he said. ..Source.. Lydia X. McCoy