Ex parte Berryhill
| Decision Date | 04 May 2001 |
| Parties | Ex parte Jason Roger BERRYHILL. (In re Jason Roger Berryhill v. State of Alabama). |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Thomas E. Drake II, Cullman, for petitioner.
Bill Pryor, atty. gen., and Jack W. Willis, asst. atty. gen., for respondent.
Jason Roger Berryhill was indicted for capital murder. The trial court appointed Mr. John A. Bivens, an attorney with over five years' experience in the practice of criminal law, and Ms. Virginia Buck, an attorney with less than five years' experience in the practice of criminal law, to represent Berryhill at trial. A jury convicted Berryhill of capital murder, and the court sentenced him to life imprisonment without parole. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Bivens withdrew from his representation, and the trial court then appointed Ms. Buck as Berryhill's sole attorney on appeal. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed both the conviction and the sentence. Berryhill v. State, 726 So.2d 297 (Ala.Crim.App.1998). This Court denied the defendant's petition for certiorari review.
Berryhill later filed a petition pursuant to Rule 32 Ala.R.Crim.P., alleging that he had had ineffective assistance of counsel on appeal. The trial court denied Berryhill's Rule 32 petition; the Court of Criminal Appeals, on June 23, 2000, affirmed that denial with an unpublished memorandum. Berryhill v. State (No. CR-99-0984), ___ So.2d ___ (Ala.Crim.App.2000) (table). We granted Berryhill's petition for certiorari review, pursuant to Rule 39(c), Ala. R.App.P. We affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals.
In his certiorari petition, Berryhill raises numerous factual allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel, all of which he raised before the Court of Criminal Appeals; we have carefully considered all of them in light of the arguments, the record on appeal, and the unpublished memorandum of the Court of Criminal Appeals. We conclude that the Court of Criminal Appeals fully and correctly addressed Berryhill's factual allegations. However, the crux of Berryhill's legal argument is that it was a prima facie denial of his right to effective assistance of counsel for the court to appoint as appellate counsel a lawyer who had not had at least "five years' prior experience in the active practice of criminal law." § 13A-5-54, Ala.Code 1975. We will address only this issue.
The polestar of statutory construction is to ascertain and give effect to the Legislature's intent in enacting a statute. Norfolk S. Ry. v. Johnson, 740 So.2d 392, 396 (Ala.1999). When a court construes a statute, "[w]ords used in [the] statute must be given their natural, plain, ordinary, and commonly understood meaning, and where plain language is used a court is bound to interpret that language to mean exactly what it says." IMED Corp. v. Systems Eng'g Assocs. Corp., 602 So.2d 344, 346 (Ala.1992).
This Court has written:
John Deere Co. v. Gamble, 523 So.2d 95, 100 (Ala.1988) (citations omitted). As we must with any statute, we read the concept of reasonableness into the provisions of the statute at issue in this case. See Bolton v. Board of School Comm'rs of Mobile County, 514 So.2d 820, 824 (Ala.1987)
.
The statute at issue in this case reads:
"Each person indicted for an offense punishable under the provisions of this article [i.e., Title 13A, Chapter 5, Art. 2, relating to capital offenses] who is not able to afford legal counsel must be provided with court appointed counsel having no less than five years' prior experience in the active practice of criminal law."
Ala.Code 1975, § 13A-5-54 (emphasis added).
The language of the statute is clear. It provides that indigent persons who are indicted for a capital offense will be provided "court appointed counsel having no less than five years' prior experience in the active practice of criminal law." The term "indictment" is defined as "an accusation in writing presented by the grand jury of the county, charging a person with an indictable offense." Ala.Code 1975, § 15-8-1. Thus, to be eligible for appointed counsel having at least "five years' prior experience in the active practice of criminal law," a person must be: (1) indigent and (2) indicted for—i.e., charged with or accused of—a capital offense. Clearly, the Legislature, by enacting this provision, intended that an indigent defendant charged with a capital offense have experienced appointed counsel at all critical phases of the initial adjudicative process for which a defendant is entitled to effective assistance of counsel. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 686, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984); Gardner v. Florida, 430 U.S. 349, 358, 97 S.Ct. 1197, 51 L.Ed.2d 393 (1977); Williams v. Turpin, 87 F.3d 1204, at 1209 (11th Cir.1996).
This interpretation is supported by the language of related statutes, which, construed in pari materia, clearly indicate a legislative intent to provide experienced representation through sentencing proceedings. See Ala.Code 1975, §§ 13A-5-45 through 13A-5-47. Kirkland v. State, 529 So.2d 1036, 1038 (Ala.Crim.App.1988) (); Burton Mfg. Co. v. State, 469 So.2d 620, 623 (Ala.Civ.App.1985) ().
Thus, we conclude that a capital defendant is clearly entitled to the representation called for by § 13A-5-54 at all stages of the trial, including sentencing and other critical posttrial proceedings. This conclusion, while logically flowing from the plain language of the statute, does not, however, end our inquiry as to when an indigent charged with a capital offense has a right to counsel under § 13A-5-54, because Berryhill argues that even on appeal he was entitled to the experienced counsel provided by that statute.
The cardinal rule in statutory construction is to give effect to the legislative intent as clearly expressed in the statute or as may be inferred from the language used as well as from the reason for the act. McClain v. Birmingham Coca-Cola Bottling Co., 578 So.2d 1299 (Ala. 1991)
. The legislative act that provided Alabama's capital-punishment provisions, Act No. 81-178, Ala. Acts 1981 (hereinafter the "Act"), provided that persons charged with certain crimes are, upon conviction, subject either to a sentence of life imprisonment without parole or to a sentence of death. Ala.Code 1975, § 13A-5-39 et seq. The obvious reason the Legislature required appointment of experienced counsel was to ensure that persons subject to the most severe form of punishment are provided with competent and effective representation. Simply stated, the Legislature sought to protect the rights of indigents charged with capital offenses by providing them with experienced advocates.
Historically, courts have emphasized the importance of appellate review:
Penson v. Ohio, 488 U.S. 75, 85, 109 S.Ct. 346, 102 L.Ed.2d 300 (1988).
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