Jail Credit Applied to Split Sentences

When imposing a split sentence, the court has a choice to make about what to do with whatever pretrial jail credit the defendant might have in the case. Apply it to the split? Or apply it to the defendant’s suspended sentence? Today’s post discusses a few issues associated with that choice. The statutory basis for the court’s choice is in G.S. 15A-1351(a). That law give the court authority to apply jail credit to “either the suspended sentence or to the imprisonment required for special probation.” If the court chooses the latter option and applies the credit to the split sentence, the defendant gets the benefit of the jail credit immediately—the imprisonment portion of split is shortened or possibly zeroed out entirely by the credit. If the court chooses to apply the credit to the suspended sentence, the credit is set aside, with the defendant only receiving the benefit of it if and when he or she is revoked. Obviously it is generally to a defendant’s advantage to have the credit applied to the split sentence now—most probationers don’t ever get revoked, and those who don’t never get a chance to cash in their banked credit. Before 2011, one of the more common uses of the court’s authority to apply jail credit to a split sentence was to order a split sentence to time already served. Back then, an Intermediate punishment had to include at least one of the six Intermediate sanctions (special probation, intensive probation, electronic house arrest, day reporting center, [...]