In the second appearance of this case before this court,1 Jonathon Cronan challenges the superior court’s order enforcing his prison sentence.2 The chain of events leading to this appeal began when the superior court allowed Cronan to remain free on a supersedeas bond while his first appeal was pending. On March 1, 1999, the superior court received the remittitur from this Court affirming Cronan’s convictions. Neither the State, nor the superior court took immediate action to place Cronan in custody to serve his prison sentence. Over six years later, the State moved to enforce Cronan’s sentence and requested that he be remanded into the custody of the Department of Corrections. The trial court granted the State’s motion, and Cronan appeals, asserting that 1 the trial court should have concluded that he began serving his sentence when the remittitur was returned to the superior court; and 2 the State is precluded from enforcing his sentence because of its unreasonable delay. Finding no error, we affirm. The seminal case governing our resolution of these issues is Huff v. McClarty , 241 Ga. 442 246 SE2d 302 1978, in which the Supreme Court held: A sentence is not voided because of the state’s delay in attempting to enforce it. This appears to be a prevelant rule. Of course, there is some point at which a state’s unreasonable delay will be deemed to prevent later enforcement of the sentence. Where the state makes no move to initiate the sentence, the defendant must offer himself up if he wishes the term to begin to run. Moreover, an offer which is premature because the sentence may not yet be put into effect, is ineffective and may not be deemed continuing. The defendant’s offer must come at a time when the sentence may lawfully be put into effect. Citations omitted. Id. at 446. Because the defendant in Huff presented himself to the county solicitor and the trial judge who sentenced him and asked if he could pay his fine in installments, the Supreme Court ruled that he had complied with the requirement “to offer himself up.” Id. As a result, the defendant’s 12 month period of probation began to run at that time. Because the probationary period expired long before the Supreme Court issued its opinion, it held that the defendant’s sentence was complete. Id. The Supreme Court did not analyze whether there had been an unreasonable delay by the State in enforcing the defendant’s sentence, perhaps because its holding that the defendant’s sentence was complete rendered this issue moot.
a Cronan asserts that we should find that he has already served the vast majority of his prison sentence because he continued to report to the superior court’s pretrial services department after the return of the remittitur, and thereby offered himself up for service of his sentence. We disagree. Unlike the defendant in Huff , supra, Cronan did not offer to begin serving his sentence when this Court affirmed his convictions. Compare Maxwell v. State , 188 Ga. App. 862 374 SE2d 800 1988 defendant made arrangements with employer for leave and requested to be taken into custody. Instead, he acquiesced in the delay of the execution of his sentence by continuing to report to the pretrial services department as though his appeal were still pending. See Volker v. McDonald , 233 NW 890, 892 Neb. 1931 defendant acquiesced in ten-year delay of his sentence execution by failing to inquire about the status of his case. As a result, he cannot now assert that his sentence began to run when he should have, but failed to, offer himself up for service of his sentence.
