Sentencing; Authority to resentence; Judgment of sentence (JOS) validity; Whether the original sentence was “imposed” within the meaning of MCR 6.429(A); Failure to appear at the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) to serve the sentence; People v Stewart; Whether defendant should have been allowed to withdraw his plea; Misconduct under MCR 6.310(B)(3)

The court held that while defendant-Sims’s original 2022 sentence was valid, it was not “imposed” due to his “failure to report to the MDOC and to be within the physical custody of the court.” Thus, the trial court did not err in resentencing him in 2024. Further, he “did not have the right to withdraw his plea because he committed misconduct” under MCR 6.310(B)(3) by absconding. He was convicted via plea of felony-firearm, second or subsequent offense, and meth possession. He was sentenced in 2022 to five years for felony-firearm and ordered to report to the MDOC one week after sentencing. The trial court then entered the JOS. But “Sims failed to appear, resulting in his subsequent arrest and resentencing before the trial court” in 2024. He was then sentenced to five years for felony-firearm and 38 months to 10 years for meth possession, to be served consecutively. He argued that the trial court did not have the authority to resentence him in 2024 because his 2022 JOS remained valid. The parties did “not dispute that the 2022 sentence was valid.” The court then considered “whether Sims’s sentence commenced after the 2022 [JOS] was entered, despite [his] failure to appear at the MDOC to serve his sentence. The trial court concluded that Sims had not commenced serving his sentence and resentencing was appropriate[.]” The court agreed with the trial court that a pre-1990 case, Stewart, “was ‘substantially similar’ to” this case, and it did not err by resentencing Sims in 2024. He “had not begun serving his 2022 sentence because he was not physically incarcerated before resentencing. Like the defendant in Stewart, Sims was ‘not in the custody of jail officials’ for the 2022 sentence, such that that he ‘had not yet commenced serving his sentence.’ . . . Sims was sentenced remotely via Zoom and given a week to get his affairs in order and report to the MDOC. [His] failure to initiate serving the 2022 sentence indicates that it was never ‘imposed’ within the meaning of MCR 6.429(A).” A trial court has “the authority to modify a valid judgment if it has not been ‘imposed.’” Affirmed.