State v. Bryant

When two assaults occur within a short period of time, and the assaults are so similar and interrelated that the facts of one crime will also relate details of the other crime, then the assaults are considered to arise out of the same criminal episode when calculating a criminal history score.

The defendant attacked two public safety officers, with the help of a third party. As one officer was being attacked, the second officer came to his aid and then was also attacked. The attacked roughly lasted for one minute. Subsequently, the defendant was charged, and convicted, of two counts of assaulting a public safety officer (one count for each of the two attacked officers). When the trial court determined the defendant's sentence, both counts of assault where included in the calculation, which increased the defendant's criminal history score. The Court of Appeals held that only one count of assault should have been used for calculating the defendant's criminal history score. The Court reasoned that the circumstances of the assaults were so interrelated that a complete account of one offense could not be related without relating the details of the other. Therefore, the two attacks were to be considered as arising out of the same criminal episode, and only one count should have been used in calculating the defendant's criminal history score.