Clerk of Court For the Court State Of Lousiana v. Jarvis Brown

The Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana
Clerk of Court
For the Court
STATE OF LOUSIANA
VS.
JARVIS BROWN
No.2019-KH-00771
_ _ _ _ _ _
IN RE: Jarvis Brown - Applicant Defendant; Applying For Supervisory Writ, Parish
of Orleans Criminal, Criminal District Court Number(s) 520-744, Court of Appeal,
Fourth Circuit, Number(s) 2019-K-202;
_ _ _ _ _ _
October 14, 2020
Writ application granted in part; denied in part. See per curiam.
WJC
BJJ
JDH
SJC
JTG
JHB
Weimer, J., would deny.
Supreme Court of Louisiana
October 14, 2020
10/14/2020 "See News Release 039 for any Concurrences and/or Dissents."

10/14/20
S
UPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA
N
o. 2019-KH-00771
S
TATE OF LOUISIANA
v
ersus
J
ARVIS BROWN
O
N SUPERVISORY WRITS TO THE CRIMINAL
DISTRICT COURT, PARISH OF ORLEANS
P
ER CURIAM:
Wr
it granted in part; otherwise denied. Defendant was convicted of three counts
of armed robbery, committed with a firearm, and two misdemeanors: possession of
marijuana and access device fraud. The district court sentenced him to serve
concurrently 60 years imprisonment at hard labor without parole eligibility for each
armed robbery committed with a firearm, and six months for each misdemeanor. The
court of appeal affirmed the convictions and misdemeanor sentences. However, the
court of appeal found, as an error patent, that the sentences for armed robbery were
indeterminate because the district court did not specify whether the 60- year terms
included the mandatory five-year sentence enhancement required by La.R.S.
14:64.3(A). Therefore, the court of appeal vacated those sentences and remanded for
resentencing.
State v. Brown, 16-0965 (La. App. 4 Cir. 5/3/17), 219 So.3d 518, writ
denied, 17-1145 (La. 6/1/18), 243 So.3d 1061.
The court of appeal erred in finding the sentences were indeterminate as an error
patent. The 1926 indeterminate sentence law provided that, except as to c ertain
enumerated offenses, the sentence imposed should include both a minimum and
maximum term. See 2916 La. Acts 222. Under this law, after serving the minimum

2

term of his sentence a prisoner was eligible for parole. To remedy confusion over the
correct interpretation and application of this law, Article 529 of the Code of Criminal
Procedure was amended in 1942 to require determinate sentences of fixed terms of
imprisonment. See 1942 La. Acts 46.
At present, La.C.Cr.P. art. 879 continues to require that a term of imprisonment
be a fixed number of years by providing that “[i]f a defendant who has been convicted
of an offense is sentenced to imprisonment, the court shall impose a determinate
sentence.” This article is routinely misapplied by the intermediate appellate courts to
find determinate, fixed term sentences to be indeterminate
when a district court has not
specified that five years of a fi xed sentence result from the firearms enhancement
provision of La.R.S. 14:64.3(A) . The intermediate appellate co urts vacate such
sentences in errors patent review. See, e.g., State v. Billingsley, 11-1425 (La. App. 3
Cir. 3/14/12, 86 So.3d 872; State v. Long, 11- 0313 (La. App. 5 Cir. 12/13/11), 81
So.3d 875; State v. Adams, 10-1140 (La. App. 4 Cir. 6/1/11), 68 So.3d 1165; State v.
Weaver, 38,322 (La. App. 2 Cir. 5/12/04), 873 So.2d 909.
As a rule of thumb, however, if it is possible to calculate a parole eligibility or
full-term release date, then the sentence is not indeterminate. While it is possible that
defendant’s sentences did not include the firearms enhancement and were therefore
illegally lenient, they were not indeterminate. Furthermore, the State did not complain
on appeal that the sentences were illegally lenient. Therefore, the court of appeal erred
in finding as an error patent that they were indeterminate and in vacating them, absent
any complaint by the State that the district court failed to apply the mandatory firearms
enhancement.
In reviewing defendant’s application for supervisory writs from the denial of his
motion to correct an illegal sentence, it became apparent that the minute entries do not

3

show that defendant was ever resentenced, as ordered by the court of appeal in State v.
Brown, supra. Therefore, we grant defendant’s application for the limited purpose of
remanding to the district court to resentence defendant, if it has not already done so,
and to furnish this court with proof of compliance. The application is otherwise denied.
REMANDED