People v. Ronowski, 564 N.W.2d 466 (Mich. Ct. App. 1997)

Cases | People v. Ronowski, 564 N.W.2d 466 (Mich. Ct. App. 1997) | 2018

The defendant pled guilty to writing three or more checks with insufficient funds within ten days, writing a check without an account, and being an habitual offender, fourth offense. On appeal, the defendant claimed that a restitution order should be eliminated because restitution was not part of the sentence recommendation. The appellate court held that the defendant was not entitled to have the restitution order eliminated from his judgment of sentence. The offenses for which the defendant was ordered to pay restitution were all committed in July and August 1994 and thus his plea agreement and sentence recommendation were negotiated well after the amended statute became effective. Because restitution was mandatory, the defendant could not claim that he did not know it would be ordered or that its imposition was not contemplated during the bargaining process. The reasoning behind People v. Schluter, 204 Mich. App. 60, 514 N.W.2d 489 (Mich. Ct. App. 1994) had no application because the case applied only to plea agreements negotiated before May 1, 1994.