Contingent Probation Cases

Under G.S. 15A-1346(a), a “period of probation commences on the day it is imposed and runs concurrently with any other period of probation, parole, or imprisonment to which the defendant is subject during that period.” Under that rule, periods of probation may not be stacked. In State v. Canady, 153 N.C. App. 455 (2002), for example, a defendant was convicted of four counts of indecent liberties with a child. The trial court consolidated two of the offenses for judgment and sentenced the defendant to (1) a 16–20 month active sentence; (2) a 20–24 month sentence, suspended for 60 months; and (3) a 20–24 month sentence, suspended for 60 months, with that probation term to run consecutively to the first one. The defendant argued that it was error for the court to boxcar the probation periods. The court of appeals agreed and remanded the case for resentencing. Id. at 460 (“[U]nder the plain terms of G.S. 15A-1346, a trial court is prohibited from imposing a sentence of two  consecutive probation periods of five years each.”). That does not, of course, mean that suspended sentences may not be set up to run consecutively in the event of revocation. They certainly may. In State v. Howell, 169 N.C. App. 58 (2005), the defendant mistakenly believed the court erred by ordering six consecutive 6–8 month terms of imprisonment, all suspended for 60 months. The court of appeals upheld the sentence, noting that “[c]onsecutive probationary sentences[] would indeed violate G.S. 15A-1346 . . . [but] the [...]