Sentencing; Scoring of OV 19; MCL 777.49(a); People v Dixon; A “jail” as a penal institution; People v Carpenter; Effect of the fact defendant was in the jail’s receiving area

The court held that the trial court did not err in scoring 25 points for OV 19 in sentencing defendant. He was convicted of malicious destruction of a building greater than $1,000 but less than $20,000, and multiple counts of resisting and obstructing a police officer. He was sentenced as a fourth-offense habitual offender to concurrent terms of 22 months to 30 years for malicious destruction and 14 months to 15 years for each resisting and obstructing conviction. He only challenged the scoring of OV 19 on appeal. He asserted the jail where his conduct took place “was not a penal institution for OV 19 purposes” and that even if it was, “the fact that his conduct occurred in the jail’s receiving area means that it did not occur in a penal institution.” The court disagreed. Generally, a jail is a "penal institution for the purposes of OV 19” and the court “has upheld the application of OV 19 to conduct in jails.” As to the fact he was in the receiving area, the court found “no statutory support for the proposition that only certain portions of a jail facility qualify as a penal institution.” Given that the receiving area was part of a county-operated facility “to physically detain charged or convicted inmates, the receiving area is part of a penal institution for the purposes of OV 19.” The court added that “OV 19 specifies that a defendant’s conduct must threaten a penal institution’s security, not that the conduct must take place within a penal institution. . . . Because defendant’s conduct threatened to injure several jail officers and required several officers to respond, thereby leaving the rest of the jail with less supervision, [his] conduct threatened the entirety of the jail’s security. Accordingly, even if the jail’s receiving area were somehow carved out from the penal institution encompassing it, [his] conduct would still satisfy the requirements for” scoring OV 19 at 25 points. Affirmed.