Legal Definitions - concurrent sentences

Concurrent sentences refer to a situation in criminal law where a person is convicted of multiple crimes, and the judge orders that the prison terms for each crime be served at the same time, rather than one after the other. This means that the total time the person spends incarcerated is equal to the length of the longest single sentence imposed, not the sum of all sentences. Judges might impose concurrent sentences when the crimes are closely related, as part of a plea agreement, or for other reasons of judicial discretion.

• Burglary and Theft from a Single Event:

  Imagine a person breaks into a commercial building (the crime of burglary) and then proceeds to steal valuable equipment from inside (the crime of theft). A court convicts them of both offenses. The judge sentences them to five years for the burglary and three years for the theft. If these sentences are ordered to be served concurrently, the individual will serve a total of five years in prison, as the three-year theft sentence runs simultaneously with the five-year burglary sentence.

• Plea Bargain for Unrelated Financial Crimes:

  A defendant is facing charges for both embezzlement from their former employer and a separate, unrelated instance of tax evasion from a different period. As part of a plea agreement with the prosecution, the defendant pleads guilty to both charges. The judge then imposes a seven-year sentence for the embezzlement and a four-year sentence for tax evasion, specifying that they are to be served concurrently. In this scenario, the defendant will serve a total of seven years, fulfilling both sentences within that period.

• Multiple Minor Offenses:

  Consider a situation where an individual is convicted of two separate counts of shoplifting from different stores on the same day, along with a minor charge of possession of drug paraphernalia discovered during their arrest. The judge sentences them to six months for each shoplifting charge and three months for the paraphernalia charge. If the judge orders all three sentences to be served concurrently, the individual will serve a total of six months in jail, as all shorter sentences run at the same time as the longest one.