State v. Keenan
Annotate this CaseDefendant pled nolo contendere to assault with a dangerous weapon. The trial justice sentenced Defendant to twenty years incarceration, with ten years to serve and ten years suspended with probation. One year after Defendant unsuccessfully moved for a sentence reduction under R.I. R. Crim. P. 35, Defendant filed a motion requesting the trial justice assign for a hearing the previously filed Rule 35 motion. After a hearing, the trial justice granted the motion and amended Defendant's sentence to twenty years, nine years to serve and eleven years suspended with probation. The Supreme Court quashed the superior court's judgment modifying Defendant's term to serve, holding that Defendant's motion to reduce sentence/assign pursuant to Rule 35 was not properly before the trial court because, notwithstanding the language contained within the text of that motion, the filing was an untimely filed new motion, and therefore, the trial justice erred in granting the motion.
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