Jail Credit for Consolidated Sentences

My colleague Jamie Markham and I have received quite a few questions lately about jail credit for consolidated sentences. Jamie has written several blog posts over the years explaining the various jail credit laws. However, there are no statutes or case law that govern the peculiar scenarios that come up regarding consolidated sentences. When a defendant is convicted of more than one offense at the same time, the court may consolidate the offenses for judgment. The sentence for that judgment is driven by the “most serious offense” among the consolidated convictions. G.S. 15A-1340.15(b). Jamie wrote a blog post here describing the 2015 legislative change to incident-based crediting. Under that change, a defendant must receive credit for all confinement “as a result of the charge that culminated in the sentence or the incident from which the charge arose.” G.S. 15-196.1. The statute requires crediting of time confined on a charge even when the person is convicted of a different charge that is not a lesser included offense, so long as the charge and conviction are part of the same incident. For example, a person initially charged with rape but later convicted of indecent liberties with a child based on the same conduct must get credit for the time spent confined on the rape charge. Jail credit can be applied fairly simply when several charges are consolidated into one judgment and all of the charges are part of the same incident. For example, let’s say a person is served with a misdemeanor breaking or [...]