State v. Overweg

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The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals reversing the district court’s denial of Defendant’s motion to correct his sentence, holding that the two-tier conditional-release term contained in Minn. Stat. 617.247, subd. 9, the child pornography statute, is not ambiguous and was properly applied in this case.Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child pornography. Relying on Minn. Stat. 617.247, subd. 9, the district court imposed a conditional-release term of ten years in addition to a twenty-month term of incarceration. In his motion to correct his sentence, Defendant argued that the proper term of conditional release was five years. The district court denied the motion. The court of appeals reversed and vacated Defendant’s conditional-release term, concluding that the statute contained a “temporal ambiguity” and that Defendant’s sentence was not authorized by law. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that section 617.247, subd. 9 is unambiguous and requires a ten-year conditional-release term for Defendant. View "State v. Overweg" on Justia Law