Successful Outcome In Lundy’s Modification Request
KOSCIUSKO COUNTY — “The judge has done what we have asked him to do. He has delayed the beginning of his (Colt Lundy’s) community correction to four months. We consider that a successful outcome,” David Kolbe, attorney for Lundy, said in a phone interview.
Kosciusko County Superior Court 1 Judge David Cates issued the order today, Friday, Nov. 2. The judge denied immediate sentence modification of Lundy’s remaining executed sentence, but granted the modification to begin March 15, 2019. Lundy’s anticipated release to begin five years of probation is Dec. 1, 2019.
Lundy has remained at the Kosciusko County Jail since his sentence modification hearing Oct. 4.
The order does state should Lundy not qualify or would no longer qualify through Kosciusko County Community Corrections, he would be immediately returned to Indiana Department of Corrections
In the modification order, Cates addressed the legality of Lundy to request such a modification to home detention. He noted while the conduct of Lundy was abhorrent, the “court is required to presume that the legislature meant exactly what it said when the legislature elected not to include conspiracy to commit murder as an offense, removing the defendant’s eligibility for placement in community corrections.”
Additionally he noted the guilty plea agreement filed Sept. 1, 2010, provided the court with a range of sentencing options and that range did not preclude modification. He stated the state statute authorized the court to sentence a defendant to alternative sentencing at the time of sentencing and another state statute allows the court to modify a sentencing order and suspend or impose a different sentence “that the court was authorized to impose at the time of sentencing.”
Cates stated while the court questioned the defendant’s contrition, “members of the victim’s family, to their credit, have accepted the defendant’s apologies and expressions of remorse. That Article 1, Section 18 of the Indiana Constitution provides, in part, that ‘the penal code shall be founded on the principles of reformation. That if we are to be a society governed by our Constitution, we must effectuate its terms.’”
The court recognized the DOC progress reports and “has no reason to doubt, that defendant has successfully completed every program available to defendant as offered through the Indiana Department of Corrections” and has no reason to doubt there has been no disciplinary issues since Oct. 31, 2012, there’s no pending charges and has been a model prisoner.