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Sentencing for misdemeanors and for felonies is very similar,
although the sentence for a misdemeanor will usually be shorter
since the maximum sentence for a misdemeanor is only one year
in jail. And sentencing after a judge trial is identical to sentencing
after a jury trial. Juries do not participate in sentencing in
Rhode Island except in a very small number of murder cases where
the possible punishment is life imprisonment without parole.
There are many kinds of sentences, some of which are very complicated.
Any of these sentences may be imposed for a misdemeanor or a felony,
and they may be imposed individually or in combination with one
another.
First, a MONETARY
PENALTY is a sentence which requires a defendant to pay
a determined amount of money, usually to the Court or State. If
the money required to be paid is to go to the Court, the penalty
is called a FINE.
If the defendant is found guilty of a misdemeanor, the fine may
not exceed $1,000 for that particular offense and is generally
a lot less. Depending upon the crime that the defendant is convicted
of, other monetary penalties may be assessed. RESTITUTION
is a monetary penalty that the Court orders a defendant to pay
to a victim, usually to compensate the victim for some loss suffered
in the crime. An ASSESSMENT
is a specific statutory fine which goes for a specific purpose.
Any conviction of a felony or misdemeanor subjects a defendant
to an assessment for the Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund;
drunk driving convictions result in other assessments for driver
education.
If a defendant does not have the financial ability to pay a
fine or other monetary assessment, the Court may permit payment
in installments, on a specific schedule. Occasionally, the Court
may “remit.” or forgive, the obligation to pay altogether.
A person may not generally be imprisoned because of inability
to pay a monetary penalty, so long as s/he does not have the ability
to pay and is in good faith. A person may be imprisoned for non-payment
if s/he has the ability to pay but simply refuses.
Second, IMPRISONMENT
at the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston may be imposed
for a fixed period of time to be determined by the judge. With
one exception, the judge does not decide which facility at the
ACI the defendant will be housed in; the ACI administration makes
that decision after a period of orientation. The only exception
is that a judge may decide that a defendant will be classified
work-release and permitted to maintain employment or a school
program off the grounds during the day; this exception only applies
to a limited number of defendants in a limited category of cases.
HOME CONFINEMENT
is a kind of imprisonment, supervised by the Department of Corrections,
even though the defendant continues to live at home. There are
many, many restrictions on a defendant’s movement in home
confinement and s/he is under very intense supervision. Only some
defendants are qualified for home confinement, and the judge must
approve it. If a defendant violates the conditions of home confinement,
s/he will be imprisoned at the ACI without a court hearing.
Every crime carries a maximum jail sentence; a defendant may
be sentenced to serve up to the maximum sentence allowed by law,
but no longer than that. The maximum sentence may be anywhere
from a year to life depending on the crime. In no event may a
defendant be sentenced on a misdemeanor conviction to serve more
than a year in jail for that particular offense.
Third, the judge may impose a SUSPENDED
SENTENCE. This is when the judge actually imposes a certain
period of imprisonment but orders that the sentence be postponed
while the defendant is on PROBATION.
Probation may be supervised, which involves frequent reporting
to a probation officer, or unsupervised, which does not. If the
probation is completed successfully, the imprisonment never will
be served. If a sentence is completely suspended, the defendant
will never have to serve any actual jailtime, assuming the period
of probation is completed successfully. If a sentence is partially
suspended, there will be some period of actual jail, followed
by a period of probation; if the probation is completed successfully,
the rest of the jail sentence will never have to be served. A
suspended sentence is conditional: so long as the behavior on
probation is good, the suspended sentence or suspended portion
of a sentence will not have to be served in jail. If, however,
the probation is broken, or violated, the defendant may be sent
to jail to serve whatever amount of time was suspended (see VIOLATION
OF PROBATION below). When a sentence is suspended, the
defendant will be told about two time periods: how long a sentence
of imprisonment has been suspended and how long the probation
period is. For example, a suspended sentence may be “ten
years suspended with fifteen years probation”. This means
that the probation period is fifteen years; if the defendant does
not complete the probation successfully, s/he could be ordered
to serve ten years in jail.
Fourth, a defendant may be placed on STRAIGHT
PROBATION. This is similar to a suspended sentence, and
requires good behavior while on probation. The difference between
a suspended sentence and straight probation is that the defendant
is not told in advance how much jailtime s/he is in jeopardy of
receiving if there is a violation of probation. The amount of
time that a defendant may be required to actually serve in jail
if s/he breaks the terms of probation is whatever the maximum
imprisonment is by law for that offense. Straight probation is
more common for misdemeanors than for felonies.
Finally, a sentence may be DEFERRED
and a defendant is placed on probation. When sentencing is deferred,
it is totally postponed. As with straight probation, there is
no warning about how much imprisonment might result if the probationary
terms are broken: it is left wide open. The only difference between
straight probation and a deferred sentence is that with straight
probation, the period of probation is set by the judge and begins
to run immediately (or at some other specific date determined
by the judge). With a deferred sentence, the probation keeps going
until the defendant has completed five consecutive years of good
behavior on the street. If there is any interruption of the five
consecutive years by a jail term for another offense, the five
years begins to run all over again when the defendant is released
from jail. Deferred sentencing may not occur after a guilty plea
or after a trial at which a defendant has been found guilty. It
can only occur after a plea of nolo.
With both straight probation and a deferred sentence, no conviction
results if the defendant completes the probationary period successfully.
Imposition of straight probation or a deferred sentence does not
result in a criminal record if the probation ends successfully.
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