Bridges v. State
| Decision Date | 15 March 2022 |
| Docket Number | 2020-CA-00816-COA |
| Citation | 349 So.3d 181 |
| Parties | Rickey Troy BRIDGES, Appellant v. STATE of Mississippi, Appellee |
| Court | Mississippi Court of Appeals |
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT: JULIE ANN EPPS, Canton, CYNTHIA ANN STEWART, Madison
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE: OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, BY: META S. COPELAND, Jackson
BEFORE BARNES, C.J., GREENLEE AND SMITH, JJ.
SMITH, J., FOR THE COURT:
¶1. Rickey Troy Bridges appeals the Forrest County Circuit Court's denial of his motion for post-conviction relief (PCR). On appeal, Bridges argues the circuit court (1) erred by finding there was insufficient evidence to prove that his second PCR motion met a statutory exception to the procedural bars and (2) should have found that he showed good cause for failing to provide additional affidavits. Finding no error, we affirm.
¶2. On October 12, 1987, Bridges was charged with simple robbery in Forrest County, Mississippi, after entering the Deposit Guaranty National Bank and passing the teller a note, stating he had a weapon and ordering her to give him money. Bridges left the bank with more than $8,000 of stolen money and fled in a getaway car driven by Melinda Morales. Bridges waived his right to an indictment and pled guilty to simple robbery on October 14, 1987. He was sentenced to serve fifteen years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) as a habitual offender pursuant to Mississippi Code Annotated section 99-19-81 (Supp. 1977). Morales, who was not a habitual offender, was arrested and charged as an accessory after the fact. She later pled guilty to that charge and received a probationary sentence.
¶3. Bridges subsequently escaped MDOC custody and absconded to Alabama. Bridges was then captured and detained in Alabama on charges related to a robbery that had been committed prior to the robbery in Mississippi. The State of Mississippi lodged a detainer with Alabama on March 22, 1989. On June 7, 1989, Bridges was sentenced in Alabama as a habitual offender to life in prison without parole for robbery. Bridges became eligible for re-sentencing about twenty-five years into serving his Alabama life sentence as a result of amendments to Alabama law. Bridges was re-sentenced in Alabama as a nonviolent offender and paroled there in May 2014. After he was paroled, Bridges signed voluntary extradition documents and was returned to MDOC custody on October 15, 2015, to serve the remainder of his 1987 Mississippi sentence for robbery.
¶4. Bridges filed his first PCR motion in April 2016 and requested that the Circuit Court of Forrest County, Mississippi, retroactively run his fifteen-year sentence from 1987 concurrently with his Alabama sentence or alternatively credit him for time served in Alabama. The circuit court held that it lacked a legal basis to grant the relief requested and denied Bridges's PCR motion. Bridges initially appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court, which later dismissed his appeal in May 2018 upon his request.
¶5. Then, on October 23, 2019, Bridges filed his second PCR motion based on his attorney's simultaneous representation of both Bridges and his co-defendant, Morales, in the 1987 robbery case. Bridges claimed his attorney, Jeff Bradley, had suffered from an actual conflict of interest that had an adverse impact on his representation and deprived him of his due process rights, the right to effective assistance of counsel, and the right to a fair trial. After holding an evidentiary hearing, the circuit court denied Bridges's second PCR motion because it was a time-barred and a successive motion. Specifically, the circuit court declared that Bridges had failed to show extraordinary circumstances that would have excepted his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel from procedural bars. The court found that the evidence showed Bridges likely could have been charged with armed robbery, which carried a sentence of life imprisonment. The circuit court determined that Bridges's attorney had obtained a plea deal that provided for a lesser sentence than the maximum (life imprisonment) Bridges could have received at trial.
¶6. Bridges subsequently filed a motion for reconsideration, alleging that he could have been eligible for parole after serving ten years in MDOC custody even if he had been convicted of armed robbery at trial. He also argued that Mississippi's armed-robbery statute was not applicable to the facts of his case because he had not taken the money by violence or exhibited a weapon. The circuit court denied his request for reconsideration after concluding that Bridges had risked being charged with armed robbery at trial; his argument challenging his plea to a sentence without eligibility for parole was unpersuasive; and his claims were not excepted from the procedural bars. Aggrieved, Bridges appeals.
¶7. "When reviewing a circuit court's denial or dismissal of a PCR motion, we will reverse the judgment of the circuit court only if its factual findings are clearly erroneous; however, we review the circuit court's legal conclusions under a de novo standard of review." Hays v. State , 282 So. 3d 714, 716-17 (¶5) (Miss. Ct. App. 2019) (quoting Gunn v. State , 248 So. 3d 937, 941 (¶15) (Miss. Ct. App. 2018) ).
¶8. The Uniform Post-Conviction Collateral Relief Act requires a PCR motion be made, "in [the] case of a guilty plea, within three (3) years after entry of the judgment of conviction." Miss. Code Ann. § 99-39-5(2) (Rev. 2020). Further, "any order dismissing the petitioner's motion or otherwise denying relief ... shall be a bar to a second or successive motion under this article." Miss. Code Ann. § 99-39-23(6) (Rev. 2020). "Essentially, an appellant is granted one bite at the apple when requesting post-conviction relief." Clay v. State , 168 So. 3d 987, 990 (¶9) (Miss. Ct. App. 2013).
¶9. Bridges's judgment of conviction and sentence was entered in October 1987. He was required to file his PCR motion by October 14, 1990. Bridges filed his first PCR motion on April 1, 2016. Bridges filed the PCR motion at issue here (his second PCR motion) on October 23, 2018. We therefore agree that Bridges's PCR motion at issue in this appeal is both time-barred and successive-motion barred.
¶10. Nonetheless, Bridges argues this second PCR motion is excepted from the procedural bars because his claims involve a violation of his fundamental rights to due process and effective assistance of counsel. Thus, we must now determine whether Bridges's claims meet an exception to the procedural bars.
¶11. We find that Bridges provided insufficient evidence to support his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim and has not met his burden for establishing a fundamental-rights exception to the procedural bars in the Uniform Post-Conviction Collateral Relief Act (UPCCRA).
¶12. "When a subsequent PCR motion [has been] filed, the burden falls on the movant to show he has met a statutory exception." Williams v. State , 110 So. 3d 840, 843 (¶15) (Miss. Ct. App. 2013).1 Our supreme court has "h[eld], unequivocally, that errors affecting fundamental constitutional rights are excepted from the procedural bars of the UPCCRA." Rowland v. State , 42 So. 3d 503, 506 (¶9) (Miss. 2010). Thus, "[t]o establish an exception, [the movant] must show a violation of one of his fundamental constitutional rights." Creel v. State , 305 So. 3d 417, 421 (¶9) (Miss. Ct. App. 2020). "[T]o survive the UPCCRA's procedural bars, there must at least appear to be some basis for the truth of the claim of a fundamental-constitutional-rights violation." Moore v. State , 248 So. 3d 845, 853 (¶21) (Miss. Ct. App. 2017) (internal quotation marks omitted).
¶13. The "fundamental-rights exceptions [that] have been expressly found to survive procedural bars" include, "[i]n ‘extraordinary circumstances,’ the right to effective assistance of counsel[.]" Creel , 305 So. 3d at 421 (¶9). "An ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim ‘must be sufficiently supported to overcome the [procedural] bar’ " and "must [be pled] ... with specificity[.]" Cook v. State , 301 So. 3d 766, 777 (¶¶33, 36) (Miss. Ct. App. 2020).
¶14. "[T]he mere assertion of a constitutional right violation does not trigger the exception." Creel , 305 So. 3d at 421 (¶9). The appellant "has a duty to make more than mere assertions and should set forth reasons for his arguments and cite authorities in their support." Brown v. State , 211 So. 3d 709, 712 (¶8) (Miss. Ct. App. 2016) (internal quotation marks omitted).2 The claims on appeal "must be supported and proved by the record" and "cannot be decided based on assertions from the briefs alone." Patton v. State , 109 So. 3d 66, 75 (¶22) (Miss. 2012). "If the party does not provide this support, this Court is under no duty to consider assignments of error...." White v. State , 818 So. 2d 369, 371 (¶7) (Miss. Ct. App. 2002).3 We further explained that "assignments of error are procedurally barred from review" when the appellant has "failed to make meaningful arguments or cite pertinent authority in addressing [his] issues." Id .
¶15. In Patton , the appellant argued the circuit court did not have proper jurisdiction of his claim, but he "[did] not point to any law or facts that ... support[ed] his allegation[.]" Patton , 109 So. 3d at 75 (¶21). Rather, he had "merely cite[d] numerous cases for the proposition that proof of jurisdiction must appear on the record and judgments entered when a court did not have jurisdiction are void ab initio." Id . The supreme court found that the appellant had "provide[d] no meaningful argument or support [for] his claim of error on this ground, other than his recitation of the general law on jurisdiction[,]" and thus, the court refrained from considering his claim on appeal. Id . at (¶22).
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Gilbert v. State
...was done." ¶13. Gilbert has made no meaningful argument that his recorded interview was involuntarily given. In Bridges v. State, 349 So.3d 181, 186 (¶14) (Miss. Ct. App. 2022), this Court explained: "[T]he mere assertion of a constitutional violation does not trigger the exception." Creel ......
-
Hughes v. State
... ... raised again by a PCR movant." Thomas v. State, ... 291 So.3d 822, 824 (¶5) (Miss. Ct. App. 2020). In other ... words, "an appellant is granted one bite at the apple ... when requesting post-conviction relief." Bridges v ... State, 349 So.3d 181, 185 (¶8) (Miss. Ct. App ... 2022) ... ¶10 ... Here, Hughes's second PCR motion is barred because the ... circuit court previously addressed Hughes's argument that ... his PRS was unlawfully revoked and that his ... ...
- Miss. Bar v. Sims