State v. Jaeger

                   IN THE SUPREME COURT
                   STATE OF NORTH DAKOTA

                                  

State of North Dakota,                                   Plaintiff and Appellee
      v.
Rayce Kody Jaeger,                                   Defendant and Appellant

                                 No. 20250195

Appeal from the District Court of McHenry County, Northeast Judicial District,
the Honorable Kari M. Agotness, Judge.

AFFIRMED.

Opinion of the Court by Jensen, Chief Justice.

Oliver W. Bromke, State’s Attorney, Towner, ND, for plaintiff and appellee.

Kiara C. Kraus-Parr, Grand Forks, ND, for defendant and appellant.
                                  State v. Jaeger
                                  No. 20250195

Jensen, Chief Justice.

[¶1] Rayce Kody Jaeger appeals from two related orders that corrected the
amount of credit he received for time served in the sentence issued after his
probation was revoked. Jaeger argues the correction was a reduction in credit
resulting in an illegal sentence because it conflicted with the district court’s oral
pronouncement at the revocation hearing. We affirm.

                                         I

[¶2] In February 2023, Jaeger pleaded guilty to felony child neglect in violation
of N.D.C.C. § 14-09-22.1. He was sentenced to a term of five years with three
years suspended, given credit for 375 days already served, a three-year term of
supervised probation, and $5,000 in restitution. After Jaeger completed his initial
term of imprisonment and was subject to supervised probation, the State filed a
petition alleging multiple violations of Jaeger’s probationary terms. At a
revocation hearing held in October 2024, Jaeger waived his right to counsel and
admitted all the alleged violations. Based on Jaeger’s admissions, the district
court revoked Jaeger’s probation.

[¶3] The district court imposed a new sentence of five years with one year
suspended, credit for time already served, and a two-year term of supervised
probation. The revocation hearing included discussions about both: (1) the time
Jaeger had served on supervised probation for purposes of determining the
maximum amount of time still available for supervised probation; and (2) the
time Jaeger had already served incarcerated for purposes of determining the
amount of credit he should receive. With respect to the latter, the court stated
Jaeger would get credit for “two years plus when you were served with the
revocation.” After learning Jaeger had spent some time incarcerated between
being arrested on the warrant and being served with the petition for revocation,
and further learning the time served on the warrant did not involve any other
charges, the court clarified Jaeger would also “get credit for when he was picked
up on the warrant.” The time between when Jaeger was picked up on the warrant


                                         1
and the revocation hearing was twenty-four days. The oral statements of the
court regarding the credit for time served added up to a total of two years and
twenty-four days. The written order that followed the court’s oral
pronouncements reflected the amount of credit for time served as “3 years and
34 days[.]”

[¶4] In April 2025, the State filed a motion pursuant to N.D.R.Crim.P. 36 to
correct a clerical error in the written order. The State argued the order conflicted
with the district court’s oral pronouncement of “two years plus when [Jaeger
was] served with the revocation,” but also acknowledged Jaeger had asked for
the time between his arrest and the service of the revocation petition.

[¶5] The district court granted the State’s motion. The court entered an order
stating the original order revoking probation “incorrectly reflected Jaeger’s
credit as 3 years and 34 days[.]” The court found the correct credit should have
been “2 years and 24 days,” with two years for time served on the original
sentence and twenty-four days for the time between Jaeger’s arrest and
resentencing. The court also entered an amended order revoking probation that
was consistent with the order granting the State’s motion. Jaeger filed a timely
appeal of these two related orders.

                                         II

[¶6] Jaeger argues the district court erred in granting the State’s Rule 36 motion
because the “reduction” in credit conflicted with the court’s oral pronouncement
at the revocation hearing. See, e.g., State v. Raulston, 

, 

 (“When a direct conflict exists between an unambiguous oral
pronouncement of a sentence and the written judgment and commitment . . . the
oral pronouncement must control.”). We review the court’s decision to correct a
clerical error in a judgment or order pursuant to Rule 36 for an abuse of
discretion. State v. Welch, 

, 

. “A district court
abuses its discretion if it acts in an arbitrary, unreasonable, or unconscionable
manner, if its decision is not the product of a rational mental process leading to
a reasoned determination, or if it misinterprets or misapplies the law.” State v.
Moos, 

, 

.


                                         2
[¶7] Rule 36 states, “[a]fter giving any notice it considers appropriate, the court
may at any time correct a clerical error in a judgment, order, or other part of the
record, or correct an error in the record arising from oversight or omission.”
N.D.R.Crim.P. 36. “As the explanatory note to N.D.R.Crim.P. 36 states, a clerical
error involves a failure to record accurately a statement made or action taken by
the court or one of the parties.” State v. Peterson, 

, 

 (cleaned up).

[¶8] In Sampson v. State, 

 (N.D. 1993), a district court told a
defendant he must serve a minimum of two years at the penitentiary when orally
pronouncing sentence, but “the written judgment and commitment did not
include [this] two-year minimum required by [N.D.C.C.] § 12.1-32-02.1(2).” Id. at
727. We held Rule 36 could be applied to correct this omission because “[t]he
amended judgment and commitment did not make Sampson’s sentence ‘more
onerous.’ It merely corrected the clerical mistake in the original judgment by
including the statutorily required mandatory minimum sentence that the trial
court originally orally imposed.” Id. Similar to Sampson, the court’s correction of
its clerical error did not make Jaeger’s sentence more onerous, but merely
corrected the clerical mistake in the original order inaccurately calculating the
credit for time served.

[¶9] In addition, consistent with Rule 36’s explanatory note, the original
written order revoking probation involved a failure to record accurately a
statement made by the district court at the revocation hearing. At the revocation
hearing, the court’s unambiguous oral pronouncements indicated Jaeger would
receive “two years” credit plus the time for when he “was picked up on the
warrant,” i.e., twenty-four days. The subsequent written order clearly appears to
have been a clerical error stating “3” instead of “2” when referencing the number
of years served, and likewise stating “34” instead of “24” when referencing the
number of days served between Jaeger’s arrest and his revocation hearing. The
order correcting the clerical error thus falls within the purview of Rule 36.

[¶10] Our review of the record shows Jaeger incorrectly references the
discussion about the time he had served on supervised probation for purposes
of determining the time still available for supervised probation, as opposed to


                                        3
the discussion about the time he had already served incarcerated for purposes of
determining the credit for time served, to support his argument that the written
order conflicts with the oral pronouncements at the revocation hearing. The
district court was within its discretion to correct the original written order
precisely because it conflicted with the unambiguous oral pronouncements at
the revocation hearing. We affirm the court’s order correcting its clerical error,
as well as the related amended order revoking probation.1

                                              III

[¶11] Jaeger also argues on appeal the district court’s failure to appoint counsel
to respond to the State’s Rule 36 motion violated his constitutional right to
counsel in sentencing modification proceedings, citing Gideon v. Wainwright, 

 (1963). The constitutional right to counsel extends to “all critical stages
of the prosecution[.]” State v. Yost, 

, 

. While
Jaeger had a statutory (rather than constitutional) right to have counsel at the
revocation hearing itself, State v. Jensen, 

, ¶ 8, 

, he
waived that right. Jaeger did not cite any cases where this Court has recognized
the correction of a clerical error pursuant to N.D.R.Crim.P. 36—in the context of
a probation revocation—constitutes a critical stage of the prosecution. On the
contrary, this Court has said the whole process of probation revocation is not a
critical stage of a criminal prosecution. 

[¶12] The district court did not violate Jaeger’s constitutional right to counsel by
not appointing him an attorney to respond to the State’s Rule 36 motion.

                                              IV

[¶13] We affirm the district court’s correction of a clerical error in the orders
challenged on appeal. We further conclude there was no violation of Jaeger’s
constitutional right to counsel.




1Our resolution of the Rule 36 issue as a clerical error renders moot Jaeger’s claim that the

correction of the error violated his double jeopardy rights.

                                               4
[¶14] Jon J. Jensen, C.J.
      Daniel J. Crothers
      Lisa Fair McEvers
      Jerod E. Tufte
      Douglas A. Bahr




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