Sentence Merger Lawyers

Merger vs Accumulation

Frequently confused two distinct figures affecting those serving multiple sentences. Accumulation (Art. 988 LECrim) is judicial procedure applying maximum serving limits of Art. 76 CP. Reduces total time to serve. Merger (Art. 193.2 RP) is a penitentiary operation considering all custodial sentences as one for conditional release purposes. It does not reduce the sentence: it avoids calculating fractions sentence by sentence. Both figures can coexist.

Framework

Art. 193.2 RP: "When convict suffers two or more custodial sentences, their sum will be considered one sentence for conditional release application." The Regulations also refer to "the sentence or sentences" when requiring one quarter for ordinary furloughs (Art. 154.1 RP) and for proposing third degree before that time under stricter conditions (Art. 104.3 RP).

Single Computation

Practical effect is decisive. An inmate with three 4-year sentences serves, once merged, a single 12-year sentence: three quarters for ordinary conditional release (Art. 90.1 CP) falls at 9 years and two thirds for early release (Art. 90.2 CP) at 8, calculated on the total rather than sentence by sentence. The quarter required for ordinary furloughs (3 years in the example) is also computed on "the sentence or sentences" (Art. 154.1 RP). Third degree, by contrast, does not depend on a fixed fraction, save for the Art. 36.2 CP security period.

Request Procedure

Inmate request or action by the prison of its own motion; documentary verification of all causes, pending sentences and sentence calculations; merger carried out by the prison; control by the Prison Supervision Judge, who decides by order; notification, with reconsideration and appeal against the order (5th additional provision LOPJ).

Appeals and Special Cases

The merger, or its refusal, is subject to the control of the Penitentiary Surveillance Judge (Art. 76 LOGP), and reconsideration and appeal lie against the judge's order (5th additional provision LOPJ); no reform or administrative appeal before the Central Authority is available. Special cases include sentences in different countries (merger possible if transfer under Strasbourg Convention).

Requirements for combining sentences and how they are proven before the supervising judge

The combination of sentences under Article 193.2 of the Prison Regulation (Royal Decree 190/1996) essentially requires that the prisoner be serving two or more custodial sentences at the same time, not merely that the convictions be final. The defence work therefore begins as a documentary exercise: confirming that every case appears on the sentence-serving record, that each sentence calculation is correct, and that no pending penalty has been left out of the count. Combination only joins the durations to set the base on which parole timeframes are calculated; it does not shorten the effective time served by a single day.

That combined base is the starting point on which the parole rules of Articles 90 to 92 of the Criminal Code, the classification rules of Article 72 and the leave rules of Article 47 of Organic Law 1/1979 (General Prison Law) then operate. It must be distinguished from the individualised reintegration prognosis, conduct, and the Treatment Board report: those are requirements of parole itself, not of the arithmetic of combining sentences. The defence must watch both planes at once, because an error in adding up the sentences can artificially delay the date on which the inmate reaches three quarters, or where applicable two thirds, of the term.

Because this is sentence-execution law and not a criminal offence, there is no penalty of its own and no offence-based limitation period to apply to this figure. What is debated is not guilt but the correct calculation of the term served. The defence therefore focuses on cross-checking start dates, credit for pre-trial detention under Article 58 of the Criminal Code, any remissions earned under the previous regime, and the temporal overlap between the different cases.

Procedure, competent body, and the system of appeals

The body that controls the combination of sentences for prison purposes is the Prison Supervision Judge, who acts on the establishment's proposal and decides by reasoned order. Against that order, the route of challenge is set by the fifth additional provision of the Organic Law of the Judiciary: first there is an appeal for reconsideration before the Prison Supervision Judge himself, allowing the decision to be revisited, and then an ordinary appeal or, where relevant, a complaint appeal. The complaint appeal is reserved, in essence, for cases where the ordinary appeal is refused admission.

The fifth additional provision allocates the appeal by subject matter: the sentencing court hears it in matters of enforcement of sentences (para. 2), and the Provincial Court in whose district the prison establishment is located hears prison-regime and other matters (para. 3). Because merger sets the calculation for conditional release, it is advisable to justify in the appeal itself the route being followed; under the second, a transferred inmate may see jurisdiction shift to the territory of the new facility. The defence must strictly observe the filing deadlines, which are short, and frame the reconsideration appeal so that it already prepares the arguments for the later ordinary appeal, since the Prison Supervision Judge's order sets much of the framework of the debate.

It is important not to confuse this route with that of the legal accumulation of sentences. The prison combination is dealt with by the Prison Supervision Judge and reviewed on appeal under the fifth additional provision of the Organic Law of the Judiciary; the accumulation under Article 76 of the Criminal Code and Article 988 of the Criminal Procedure Act is resolved by the sentencing court, and its order may be appealed on a point of law before the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court. These are two distinct procedures, with different bodies and remedies, which often coexist in the situation of a single prisoner.

Combination versus legal accumulation, the security period, and the Article 78 calculation

The most widespread confusion is to treat combining and accumulating as the same thing. Legal accumulation under Article 76 of the Criminal Code sets the maximum effective term to be served, which as a general rule cannot exceed three times the most serious penalty, with absolute ceilings of 20, 25, 30 or 40 years depending on the gravity of the offences. The combination under Article 193.2 of the Prison Regulation does not touch that ceiling: it only adds durations to calculate when the possibility of parole arises. A person may have their sentences accumulated to a maximum and, at the same time, combined for prison purposes, without the two operations contradicting each other.

Two further figures bear on this picture and must be controlled by the defence. The security period of Article 36.2 of the Criminal Code can bar access to open prison (third grade) until half the sentence is served in certain cases, which indirectly affects the path toward parole. And Article 78 of the Criminal Code allows the sentencing court to order that, where accumulation leaves a term to be served of less than half the total sum, the calculation of benefits, leave, third grade, and parole be referred to the totality of the penalties imposed rather than to the accumulated limit, which pushes those milestones back.

The result is a layered system: accumulation marks the ceiling, Article 78 may change the calculation base for benefits, combination sets the prison starting point, and the security period conditions progression through the grades. A technical defence analyses these pieces together, because an isolated approach to combination, without regard to Articles 76, 78, and 36.2, can lead to mistaken conclusions about the real date on which the inmate may apply for parole.

Review under the more favourable criminal law and the role of the defence during execution

A prisoner's situation is not fixed: when a legal reform changes the penalties for the offences being served, Article 2.2 of the Criminal Code requires the more favourable law to be applied automatically, even to facts already judged by a final sentence, as long as the sentence is still being executed. This may alter the calculation of one of the penalties that are later combined, so review and combination should be examined together. The general rule is that the more favourable regime is applied as a whole, without constructing a third framework by mixing the favourable parts of each law.

This review logic becomes relevant when a recent reform touches offence types the inmate is serving. Organic Law 1/2026 of 8 April, on repeat offending, amended, among others, the Criminal Code provisions on theft and fraud and revised certain aggravated theft offences. If any of the combined sentences corresponds to those offences, it is worth checking whether the new framework is, as a whole, more favourable to the prisoner, without attributing to that law effects it does not contain. The comparison must be made penalty by penalty and on an overall basis.

The defence's role runs through the entire execution phase: reviewing the correctness of each sentence calculation, requesting combination where appropriate, monitoring its fit with accumulation under Articles 76 and 988, raising review under the more favourable law of Article 2.2, and, where necessary, appealing the Prison Supervision Judge's order first for reconsideration and then, where an appeal lies, before the body designated by the 5th additional provision LOPJ. Deadlines are usually short and the effects cumulative in terms of prison time, so technical and early intervention is decisive in ensuring that the calculation faithfully reflects what the law recognises for the inmate.