Lonnie Paul Spargov.The State
In 2008, Lonnie Spargo entered a guilty-plea agreement covering two child-molestation counts. The superior court imposed a separate 20-year prison term for each count and ordered the terms to run consecutively. Years later, Spargo asked the sentencing court to set the terms aside as unauthorized, relying on a Georgia law that requires probation in addition to imprisonment for covered sexual offenses. The court denied relief, and Spargo appealed. The Court of Appeals vacated both terms and sent the case back for resentencing. It explained that a sentencing court may correct an unlawful sentence at any time, and a sentence is void when the law does not authorize it. The statute requires at least one year of probation in addition to imprisonment for covered offenses. Under controlling precedent, that rule applied to Spargo’s child-molestation pleas, even if they were his first such convictions. Because his sentences included imprisonment without probation, they could not stand; the court therefore did not decide the State’s alternative argument based on an earlier drug-related driving conviction. The sentences were vacated and the case remanded for resentencing.
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