Dunaway v. State, 2017-CP-01692-COA
| Decision Date | 19 March 2019 |
| Docket Number | NO. 2017-CP-01692-COA,2017-CP-01692-COA |
| Citation | 281 So.3d 225 |
| Parties | Billy Ray DUNAWAY a/k/a Billy Ray Dunnaway a/k/a Billy Dunaway, Appellant v. STATE of Mississippi, Appellee |
| Court | Mississippi Court of Appeals |
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT: BILLY RAY DUNAWAY (PRO SE)
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE: OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, BY: SCOTT STUART, JACKSON
BEFORE J. WILSON, P.J., GREENLEE AND McCARTY, JJ.
GREENLEE, J., FOR THE COURT:
¶1. This is an appeal from the Pike County Circuit Court's denial of Billy Ray Dunaway's motion for post-conviction relief (PCR) as meritless. Finding no error, we affirm.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
¶2. Eighteen-year-old Edward Lloyd Hux (Hux) visited his mother at her work one evening. She tended bar at a local place, and her boyfriend, Billy Ray Dunaway (Dunaway), had driven Hux to see her. When they left, Hux's mother asked Dunaway to let Hux drive because Dunaway was clearly drunk. Dunaway adamantly refused, and after having driven only a short distance, he swerved into oncoming traffic. His truck flipped and threw Dunaway from his seat to the road. But Hux's body was pinned underneath the wreckage.
¶3. Emergency vehicles took both men to a nearby hospital. Soon after their arrival, doctors pronounced Hux dead.
¶4. A Pike County jury found Dunaway guilty of vehicular homicide. The circuit court amended his indictment, sentenced him as a habitual offender to twenty-five years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, and ordered him to pay a $10,000 fine.
¶5. Dunaway appealed. He challenged the sufficiency of the evidence and alleged that the circuit court erred in admitting certain evidence. This Court found no error and affirmed his conviction and sentence. Dunaway v. State , 919 So.2d 67, 69 (¶ 2) (Miss. Ct. App. 2005). Our supreme court then dismissed his petition for certiorari. Dunaway v. State , 920 So.2d 1008 (Miss. 2005). The mandate issued in February 2006.
¶6. Next, Dunaway filed for leave to seek post-conviction relief in the trial court. The Mississippi Supreme Court denied him leave. He filed again, and the supreme court found his application procedurally barred from consideration as successive under section 99-39-27(9) of the Mississippi Code Annotated (Rev. 2000).
¶7. Nonetheless, Dunaway filed a petition for an order to show cause or, in the alternative, for a writ of habeas corpus. The Pike County Circuit Court denied his petition, and Dunaway appealed. Our Court affirmed the circuit court's decision but determined that because Dunaway had been denied permission from the Mississippi Supreme Court, the circuit court should have dismissed Dunaway's motion for lack of jurisdiction. Dunaway v. State , 111 So.3d 117, 119 (¶ 8) (Miss. Ct. App. 2013).
¶8. Dunaway filed again for leave to seek post-conviction relief. This time, our supreme court granted it. In his motion for relief, he asserted that his indictment was improperly amended to add habitual-offender status after the verdict and without notice of the State's intention to do so. He further alleged that the lack of notice was prejudicial under Gowdy v. State , 56 So.3d 540 (Miss. 2010).
¶9. The circuit court denied his motion:
Having reviewed the file and record, the court finds Gowdy does not apply to the case at bar. The Mississippi Supreme Court held in Carr v. State , that "the rule we announced in Gowdy does not apply retroactively to cases that were final before April 7, 2011, the date the mandate issued in Gowdy ." 178 So.3d 320, 321 (Miss. 2015). Finality occurs when the direct appeal process has been exhausted, and the direct appeal process was exhausted in Mr. Dunaway's case no later than February 9, 2006, approximately five years prior to the ruling in Gowdy .
¶10. He appeals to this Court, again asserting that: (1) he was denied due process because the circuit court amended his indictment after his conviction;1 and (2) his sentence was illegal because he did not receive notice of the amendment. We affirm the circuit court's judgment.
DISCUSSION
¶11. "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." Gunn v. State , 248 So.3d 937, 941 (¶ 15) (Miss. Ct. App. 2018) (quoting Berry v. State , 230 So.3d 360, 362 (¶ 3) (Miss. Ct. App. 2017) ).
¶12. Dunaway argues that the State failed to cure its own errors in the indictment prior to trial, which he says is a fundamental denial of his right to due process. He further avers that under Gowdy , the amendment of an indictment to include a habitual-offender status after conviction is illegal.
¶13. His general assertion is true: Gowdy prohibits the amendment of an indictment to include a habitual-offender status after conviction. But the rule in Gowdy does not apply retroactively. Carr v. State , 178 So.3d 320, 323 (¶ 14) (Miss. 2015) ().
¶14. In Carr , the movant had been convicted of manslaughter before the circuit court allowed the State to amend his indictment to include a habitual-offender status. Id. at 320 (¶ 2). He appealed, and our court affirmed the conviction. Id. at (¶ 3). Thus, the mandate in that appeal issued in October 2007. Id. Like Dunaway, Carr sought leave from the supreme court to move for PCR twice but was denied both times. Id. at 320-21 (¶ 3). After receiving approval on the third time, Carr claimed that the habitual-offender portion of his sentence should be vacated because Gowdy prohibited post-conviction indictment amendments. Id. But our supreme court held that under Teague v. Lane , 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989), the Gowdy rule "does not meet either of the ‘limited exceptions’ that allow a new rule to be applied retroactively." Carr , 178 So.3d at 322 (¶ 12). Therefore, the rule "does not apply retroactively to cases that were final before April 7, 2011, the date the mandate issued in Gowdy ." Id. at 321 (¶ 6).
¶15. The mandate in Dunaway's appeal issued in February 2006. Under our caselaw, the Gowdy rule cannot apply because Dunaway's case was final before April 7, 2011. And the amendment of an indictment after conviction was permissible under Mississippi law at the time of Dunaway's trial. See, e.g. , Torrey v. State , 891 So.2d 188, 194 (¶¶ 35-39) (Miss. 2004). Therefore, this Court affirms the circuit court's denial of Dunaway's motion for PCR.
¶16. On appeal, Dunaway argues that he was "trapped by the Prosecution['s] sandbagging and blatant misrepresentation." He asserts that if he had known he was going to be sentenced as a habitual offender, then he would have testified against that status.
¶17. However, the record indicates that Dunaway received notice the day before the sentencing hearing, and that a sentencing hearing was in fact conducted. During the hearing—held November 22, 2002—Dunaway's counsel stated he "received the motion [to amend] at five o'clock on yesterday ...." The record further shows that Dunaway was fully aware of his habitual-offender status during the hearing:
To continue reading
Request your trial