Barnes v. State
| Decision Date | 05 November 2012 |
| Docket Number | No. S12A0708.,S12A0708. |
| Citation | 732 S.E.2d 752,291 Ga. 831 |
| Parties | BARNES v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Joseph M. Barnes, Sparta, pro se.
Layla Hinton Zon, Dist. Atty., Christopher Mark DeNeve, Asst. Dist. Atty., Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Asst. Atty. Gen., Samuel S. Olens, Atty. Gen., for appellee.
In 1993, a jury found appellant Joseph M. Barnes guilty of malice murder, two counts of felony murder, and armed robbery and recommended a sentence of death for the murder. The trial court sentenced Barnes to death for the murder and also imposed a consecutive life sentence for the armed robbery. This Court affirmed Barnes' convictions but vacated the death sentence and remanded to the trial court for a new sentencing hearing based on our conclusion that the trial court had improperly restricted the scope of mitigating evidence presented at the sentencing phase of Barnes' trial. See Barnes v. State, 269 Ga. 345(27), 496 S.E.2d 674 (1998). On remand, Barnes and the State entered into a sentencing agreement under which Barnes accepted a sentence of life without parole and the State agreed to withdraw its notice of intent to seek the death penalty.1 The trial court accepted the agreement at a hearing on November 16, 1999 and sentenced Barnes to life without parole on his malice murder conviction. On August 30, 2011, Barnes, proceeding pro se, filed a motion for out-of-time appeal. Barnes appeals following the denial of his motion, and we affirm.
In prior cases, we have examined enumerations of error related to the validity of a sentencing agreement like Barnes' under the same legal standards applicable to guilty pleas. See Hinely v. State, 275 Ga. 777, 783(5), 573 S.E.2d 66 (2002) (); Brantley v. State, 268 Ga. 151(1), 486 S.E.2d 169 (1997) (). Likewise, in reviewing the issue on appeal in this case, we turn for guidance to our cases addressing the availability of an out-of-time appeal from a judgment and sentence entered on a guilty plea. “It is well established that a criminal defendant has no unqualified right to file a direct appeal from a judgment of conviction and sentence entered on a guilty plea.” (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Brown v. State, 290 Ga. 321(1), 720 S.E.2d 617 (2012). “[A]n appeal will lie ... only if the errors asserted on appeal can be resolved by facts appearing on the face of the record, and the denial of a request for out-of-time appeal is proper if an examination of the record reveals no merit to the claimed errors.” (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Adams v. State, 285 Ga. 744(1), 683 S.E.2d 586 (2009).
Barnes maintains that the sentencing agreement should be invalidated because the trial court imposed multiple life sentences for the same offense, contrary to the terms of the sentencing agreement and Georgia law.2 The record contradicts Barnes' contentions. Under the sentencing agreement, Barnes agreed to accept a single sentence of life without parole for malice murder, and that is the sentence the trial court imposed. The two felony murder convictions always stood vacated by operation of law. Williams v. State, 270 Ga. 125, 126(4), 508 S.E.2d 415 (1998) () (citations and punctuation omitted). Because our prior decision affirmed Barnes' conviction and life sentence for armed robbery, the sentencing agreement could not and did not purport to address his sentence for that offense. Barnes' argument to the contrary notwithstanding, the armed robbery conviction did not merge into his conviction for felony murder with armed robbery as the underlying felony. Where, as here, a felony murder conviction is vacated by operation of...
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...a single victim; instead, we would recognize that the felony murder conviction was vacated by operation of law. See Barnes v. State, 291 Ga. 831, 833, 732 S.E.2d 752 (2012). Nor would we uphold a 40–year sentence for a voluntary manslaughter conviction, where the law provides for a maximum ......
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...order. Neither of the latter two claims were raised below, and both claims have thus been waived for appeal. See Barnes v. State , 291 Ga. 831, 833, n. 2, 732 S.E.2d 752 (2012). As to Humphrey's ineffectiveness claims, to the extent they were not also waived, they cannot be decided by refer......
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Terry-Hall v. State
...his right of appeal was waived because he failed to raise it in his motion for an out-of-time appeal); see also Barnes v. State , 291 Ga. 831, 833 n.2, 732 S.E.2d 752 (2012) (challenges to sentencing agreement not raised in the trial court in connection with the motion for an out-of-time ap......
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Barnes v. State
...for malice murder. This Court affirmed the trial court's denial of appellant's pro se motion for out-of-time appeal in Barnes v. State, 291 Ga. 831, 732 S.E.2d 752 (2012). In that appeal, we specifically rejected appellant's arguments that his sentence for malice murder was illegal because ......