News In Brief

The four months that a state inmate served in a local jail for drunken-driving and other charges after absconding from a work-release program must be credited against his prison sentence in a drug case, an appeals court has ruled. A unanimous panel of the Appellate Division, Third Department, decided that Paul Campbell’s drunken-driving sentence was pursuant to a plea agreement he knowingly entered into and which a judge stipulated be served concurrently to his unexpired prison sentence. The Department of Correctional Services, however, argued that it could not credit the time against the five-year sentence Mr. Campbell was serving in the drug charge when he absconded.

“We resolve this conflict in favor of requiring DOCS to credit the time served,” Justice Robert S. Rose wrote for the panel in Campbell v. Fischer, 510791. To rule otherwise would violate the sentencing court’s discretion to impose a concurrent sentence under Penal Law §70.25(1), the panel ruled in adopting the reasoning of a Fourth Department ruling in Matter of Midgley v. Smith, 63 AD2d 223 (1978). — Joel Stashenko

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