Another Jail Credit Issue: The Charge that Culminated in the Sentence

Last week I wrote a post about “using up” jail credit that generated some helpful comments. Thanks! I’m hoping for a repeat performance with today’s post, which is about another jail credit issue. A defendant must receive credit for all the time he or she is confined “as a result of the charge that culminated in the sentence.” G.S. 15-196.1. What is the charge that culminates in the sentence? Clearly when a defendant is charged with, confined for, and eventually sentenced on a single charge, that is the charge that culminates in the sentence, and it must receive all applicable credit. It is likewise clear that when a person is held on one charge but convicted of an entirely separate charge, the credit from the first charge cannot be applied toward the sentence on the other. In other words, credit accrued against one charge cannot be shared with some contemporaneous charge, or banked for some future charge. That is true even if the charges are transactionally related. In State v. Floyd, 173 N.C. App. 234 (2005) (unpublished), for example, the defendant was initially charged with first-degree murder. Forty-five days later, and still in custody on the murder charge, she was indicated for an armed robbery that arose out of the same incident as the murder charge. After 91 additional days in custody she pled guilty to the armed robbery and the murder charge was dismissed. The trial court applied 91 days of jail credit to the robbery conviction. The court of [...]