Hill v. Bradford
| Decision Date | 22 June 1990 |
| Citation | 565 So.2d 208 |
| Parties | Dillard Roy HILL v. Sadie Vess BRADFORD. 89-210. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Robert M. Hill, Jr. of Hill, Young and Boone, Florence, for appellant.
Donald R. White, Moulton, for appellee.
This appeal arises out of a suit to set aside conveyances of real estate that were allegedly made to defraud a judgment creditor. The judgment creditor, Sadie Vess Bradford, is the widow of a crime victim. She received a $225,000 judgment against the defendant/debtor, Dillard Roy Hill, under the Restitution to Victims of Crimes Act, Ala.Code 1975, § 15-18-65 et seq. Mrs. Bradford filed suit to set aside conveyances Hill made to his daughter and to his son's corporation. Hill filed a counterclaim seeking to set aside the restitution judgment entered in Mrs. Bradford's favor. The trial court held that the real estate had not been fraudulently conveyed, and that the restitution judgment previously entered against Hill and in favor of Mrs. Bradford was valid. The defendant has appealed from the trial court's ruling on his counterclaim.
On May 30, 1980, the defendant, Dillard Roy Hill, shot and killed Rayburn Vess. On June 25, 1980, Hill conveyed one parcel of real estate to his daughter, Jeweldeen Hall, and two parcels of real estate to H. & L., Inc., a corporation in which his son, Willard Hill, had a controlling interest. According to the testimony at trial, Hill received $4,600 from his daughter as consideration for the conveyance to her, and, according to that testimony, in exchange for the property his son paid $8,500 in cash to the defendant and extinguished a $6,500 debt that the defendant owed him. Hill testified that he conveyed the real estate because he needed money to pay his defense attorneys.
Following a conviction of manslaughter, an appeal, a reversal of the conviction, and a new trial, Hill was again convicted of manslaughter on May 20, 1981, in the Circuit Court of Lawrence County. On May 26, 1981, Hill was sentenced to a 10-year term of imprisonment and was fined $5,000. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the judgment and sentence on June 8, 1982, and on June 28, 1982, Hill began serving his sentence of imprisonment. On August 5, 1982, the district attorney of Lawrence County filed a petition on behalf of Sadie Vess, 1 the victim's widow, for compensation under Ala.Code 1975, § 15-18-67, which provides:
(See also Temp.Rule 10, A.R.Crim.P.) This statute became effective on May 28, 1980, two days before Vess's death.
A hearing on the petition was held on August 17, 1982. Hill requested that an attorney be appointed to represent him at the hearing, but the trial judge denied the request, stating that he did not think Hill was entitled to have a lawyer appointed because his guilt had already been established. On August 23, 1982, following the hearing, the trial court entered a written order that required Hill to pay $225,000 restitution to Sadie Vess Bradford. Hill filed no post-judgment motions in this matter, and he did not appeal.
On July 2, 1986, Sadie Vess Bradford filed a suit in Lawrence County to set aside the conveyances Hill had made to his daughter and to H. & L. Inc., on the ground that Hill's purpose in conveying the property was to defraud her and to hinder her efforts to collect the restitution judgment. Hill denied the allegations of the complaint and pleaded as affirmative defenses that the circuit court had acted without jurisdiction when it awarded the judgment for restitution, and that the restitution award was invalid because legal counsel was not appointed for him at the hearing and this failure to appoint counsel amounted to a denial of due process.
On March 31, 1988, Jeweldeen Hall sold the property she had received from her father in 1980 to Clayton and Ann Patrick. Upon a motion filed by the Patricks on September 19, 1988, they were permitted to intervene in the fraudulent conveyance suit to protect their interests in the property. The Patricks filed a motion requesting the court to add Jeweldeen Hall as a party defendant, and the court granted the motion on October 5, 1988.
On November 7, 1988, Hill filed a counterclaim against Bradford. Hill claimed that the restitution judgment entered against him was void and...
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...97 S.Ct. at 1205, and the obligation to pay restitution is a part of a criminal sentence, Hughes, 742 N.W.2d at 463.See Hill v. Bradford, 565 So.2d 208, 210 (Ala.1990) (concluding that defendants “have the right to the presence of counsel at [restitution] hearings” because they are “a compo......
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...is final upon imposition. 11. We note that this holding is not in conflict with the Alabama Supreme Court's holding in Hill v. Bradford, 565 So.2d 208 (Ala.1990). In Hill, the Court held that the trial court had jurisdiction to issue a restitution order approximately 15 months after the def......
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