Jail Credits?

An attorney friend recently became involved in a case in which a criminal defendant had, with the assistance of his defense counsel, worked out a plea agreement with the prosecution in which he would plead guilty to an indictment in exchange for the prosecution and the court's sentencing him to five years of imprisonment.

The problem with this plea agreement was that the indicted charge by statute had a maximum penalty of two years. This problem was not discovered by a jail house lawyer until the defendant was four and a half years into his sentence, at which point the court vacated the sentence and adopted a “Visa Rewards” state of mind and re-sentenced the defendant to: "one year committed to the House of Correction. Defendant deemed to have 1,680 jail credit days."

Jail credit days? Is that like a get-out-of-jail free card? Does he have 1,680 days that he can apply to any future convictions?

Luckily for the defendant, he has a nephew who is Internet savvy and gave him the best advice of any that has been given to him in the past five years: “Try to sell your 1,680 jail credit days on eBay.

The attorney joke book: "How Many Clients Does It Take To Change a Lightbulb? A Lawyer Strikes Back"