Sua sponte amendment of a judgment of sentence (JOS); A trial court’s authority to correct mistakes in its judgments & orders; MCR 6.435; People v Worthington; Life without parole (LWOP)

Holding that the trial court erred in sua sponte amending defendant’s JOS, the court vacated his amended JOS and remanded to the trial court to reinstate his original JOS. Decades after he was convicted in 1989 for homicide and felony-firearm, defendant challenged his LWOP sentence in “the trial court by filing a motion to correct his invalid sentence along with other motions.” The trial court denied the motion as “untimely, but sua sponte issued an amended” JOS. The court noted that the only challenge properly before it as of right was to the trial court’s entry of the 2/24/23 amended JOS making defendant’s “sentences in this case consecutive to that imposed for his 1987 drug conviction.” While the court agreed that his initial JOS was invalid, the trial “court did not have the authority to substantively amend it once it was issued. The plain language of MCR 6.435, captioned ‘Correcting Mistakes,’ addresses the trial court’s authority to correct mistakes in its judgments and orders. The rule separately addresses ‘clerical mistakes’ and ‘substantive mistakes.’” As to the former, “MCR 6.435(A) provides: ‘Clerical mistakes in judgments, orders, or other parts of the record and errors arising from oversight or omission may be corrected by the court at any time on its own initiative or on motion of a party, and after notice if the court orders it.’” MCR 6.435(B) addresses substantive mistakes and “states: ‘After giving the parties an opportunity to be heard, and provided it has not yet entered judgment in the case, the court may reconsider and modify, correct, or rescind any order it concludes was erroneous.’” The Supreme Court held in Worthington that under “MCR 6.435(B), a trial court does ‘not have the authority to amend the [JOS] after entry to add a provision for consecutive sentencing under MCL 768.7a(2)[14]’ because ‘adding a statutorily mandated term is a substantive correction that a trial court may make on its own initiative only before judgment is entered.’” The court concluded that this “rationale applies with equal force to a consecutive sentence that is statutorily mandated under MCL 768.7a(1).”