Jail credit under MCL 769.11b; People v Allen; People v Prieskorn; Whether cases were related; People v Raisbeck; Waiver; Ineffective assistance of counsel; Failure to move to revoke bond; Failure to advance a meritless argument; Prejudice; Equal protection claim related to strict application of MCL 769.11b; Rational basis review; Sentencing; Proportionality & reasonableness; Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC)

While the court concluded that defendant did not waive her jail credit issue, it held that she was not entitled to additional credit. It rejected her related ineffective assistance of counsel and equal protection claims, and found that she did not show “that her within-guidelines sentence was unreasonable or disproportionate.” She appealed her sentence for her plea-based convictions for false application for a state identification card and identity theft, second offense. She was sentenced as a fourth-offense habitual offender to 28 months to 40 years for each offense, to be served concurrently, with two days of jail credit. “Defendant was involved in two overlapping criminal cases, one in Wayne County and” this case in Oakland County. She first argued that she was “entitled to jail credit from the date that her bond was revoked,” 1/11/24, to her sentencing date, 8/28/24. The court disagreed, noting she was sentenced on 10/30/23 in the Wayne County case to 23 months to 5 years, with 164 days of jail credit. As a result, she was incarcerated in the MDOC “and was serving time solely on the Wayne County convictions. Although the trial court revoked defendant’s bond in” this case on 1/11/24, “defendant was not entitled to sentence credit from that date forward because her incarceration was attributable to the Wayne County sentences, not the charges in this case.” Thus, the trial court did not err when it denied her “additional sentence credit under MCL 769.11b.” The court also rejected her claim that she was entitled to additional “credit on the basis that the Wayne and Oakland cases were related, as she used” the same victim’s identity in both. It found the situation here was similar to that in Raisbeck. The time for which she sought credit was time that she served for the Wayne County convictions, not for the offenses in this case. While the crimes “in both counties involved the same victim, that factual overlap does not establish that defendant was confined ‘for’ the Oakland County offenses within the meaning of MCL 769.11b.” Further, defense counsel was not ineffective for failing “to move to revoke her bond after sentencing in the Wayne County case.” Given that she “was not entitled to credit for time served for her earlier related case,” an argument by her counsel “to the contrary would have lacked merit.” Affirmed.