by Michael B. Skinner · Friday July 10, 2009 10:06 am PERMALINK
Defendants often learn after conviction, as they read over their PSIRs in their cells, that there are errors in their PSIRs that were not addressed at sentencing. How can these errors be corrected? If the defendant was convicted a long time ago, it will be more difficult, but I believe that the correct rule is that, as a record of the court, the court has the inherent authority to correct errors at anytime — of course, you need to convince the judge that the error is actually an error.But if the defendant discovers the error in a more timely manner — say, within six months of his sentencing — he can file a motion in the circuit court and both statutory law (MCL 769.34(10)) and court rule (MCR 6.429(C)) permit this. In People v Lloyd, the Court of Appeals confirmed that defendants can file motions to for "resentencing" solely to correct errors in the PSIR (in Lloyd's case, he was convicted of felony firearm which carries a flat two year sentence, so there was nothing to argue about the length of the sentence in his motion).
