Knight v. State
Decision Date | 13 October 2017 |
Docket Number | CR–16–0885 |
Citation | 252 So.3d 1108 |
Parties | Solomon Makil KNIGHT v. STATE of Alabama |
Court | Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals |
Solomon Makil Knight, pro se.
Steve Marshall, atty. gen., and James R. Houts, asst. atty. gen., for appellee.
Solomon Makil Knight appeals the circuit court's summary dismissal of what he styled as a "Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus Incomplete Jury Instruction(s)," but which was, in fact, a Rule 32, Ala. R. Crim. P., petition for postconviction relief. (C. 2.) In his petition, Knight challenged his 2008 conviction for reckless manslaughter and his resulting sentence of 17 years' imprisonment. This Court affirmed Knight's conviction and sentence on direct appeal in an unpublished memorandum issued on June 19, 2009. Knight v. State (No. CR-07-1657), 51 So.3d 405 (Ala. Crim. App. 2009) (table). The Alabama Supreme Court denied certiorari review, and this Court issued a certificate of judgment on November 13, 2009.
On January 30, 2017, Knight filed the instant petition, what appears to be at least his second petition challenging his 2008 conviction and sentence. As best we can discern, Knight alleged in his petition: (1) that his trial counsel was ineffective for not objecting to the trial court's jury instruction on manslaughter as a lesser-included offense of intentional murder as charged in the indictment, and (2) that his 17–year sentence is illegal because, he said, he is entitled to be resentenced under the presumptive sentencing standards, which took effect on October 1, 2013. On January 31, 2017, the circuit court issued an order instructing Knight either to pay the filing fee associated with his petition or to submit a request to proceed in forma pauperis. On March 2, 2017, Knight submitted a request to proceed in forma pauperis; the circuit court granted the request on March 3, 2017.
On March 23, 2017, the State filed a response to Knight's petition, in which it requested that the circuit court summarily dismiss the petition. The State argued that claim (1), as set out above, was precluded because it should have been, but was not, raised in Knight's first Rule 32 petition, and that claim (2), as set out above, was meritless because the presumptive sentencing standards, which took effect on October 1, 2013, do not apply retroactively, and, even if the standards did apply retroactively, manslaughter fell under the voluntary sentencing standards, not the presumptive sentencing standards. The State also argued that claim (2) was "not properly filed in that it should be filed with the nearest Circuit Court to where the Petitioner resides and not the Trial Court which heard his case." (C. 15.) On March 24, 2017, the circuit court issued an order granting the State's request for summary dismissal and dismissing Knight's petition.
On appeal, Knight's sole argument is that the circuit court erred in summarily dismissing his petition, which he now concedes was a Rule 32 petition and not a habeas corpus petition, instead of returning the petition to him so that he could file the petition in the proper form for a Rule 32 petition, and he requests that we reverse the circuit court's judgment and remand this cause for the circuit court to return the petition to him to be refiled in the proper form under Rule 32.6(a), Ala. R. Crim. P. The State agrees with Knight and also requests that we reverse the circuit court's judgment and remand this cause for the circuit court to return the petition to Knight so that Knight may refile the petition in the proper form under Rule 32.6(a). We reject both Knight's and the State's requests.
In the early 1990s, this Court consistently reversed judgments dismissing Rule 32 petitions that were styled as habeas corpus petitions and remanded the cases with instructions that the petitions be returned so that they could be refiled in the proper form under Rule 32.6(a). See, e.g., Williams v. State, 642 So.2d 491 (Ala. Crim. App. 1993) ; Wheeler v. State, 615 So.2d 1330 (Ala. Crim. App. 1993) ; O'Neal v. State, 601 So.2d 1155 (Ala. Crim. App. 1992) ; Wright v. State, 597 So.2d 761 (Ala. Crim. App. 1992) ; and Drayton v. State, 600 So.2d 1088 (Ala. Crim. App. 1992). However, in 1995, the Alabama Supreme Court overruled that line of cases in Maddox v. State, 662 So.2d 915 (Ala. 1995), which we quote in its entirety:
662 So.2d at 916. Here, as in Maddox, Knight's petition was filed in the court of original conviction as required by Rule 32.5, and nothing in the record indicates that the circuit court did not properly treat the petition as a Rule 32 petition in accordance with Rule 32.4.
The State argues that because it incorrectly averred in its response to the petition that Knight's challenge to the legality of his sentence "should be filed with the nearest Circuit Court to where the Petitioner resides and not the Trial Court which heard his case," because the circuit court referenced the State's response in its order, and because the "the circuit court's order does not clearly reflect the basis of the court's dismissal of the petition" (State's brief, pp. 5–6), the circuit court's order "could be interpreted as relying on the improper grounds for dismissal cited by the State." (State's brief, pp. 3–4.) This is true. This Court could interpret the circuit court's order as summarily dismissing Knight's petition on an improper ground, i.e., on the ground that the petition should have been filed in a different venue. However, we decline to do so because circuit judges "are presumed to know the law and to follow it in making their decisions." Ex parte Slaton, 680 So.2d 909, 924 (Ala. 1996). That the circuit court referenced in its order the State's response to Knight's petition, which response happened to include an incorrect assertion, is not sufficient to overcome the presumption that the circuit court knew and followed the law when dismissing Knight's petition. Cf. Bagley v. State, 186 So.3d 488, 489 (Ala. Crim. App. 2015) (). Absent any indication in the record to the contrary, we presume that the circuit court properly treated Knight's petition as a Rule 32 petition for postconviction relief and ruled on it accordingly.
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...i.e., the county in which he was convicted, and was properly summarily dismissed. (State's brief, pp. 7-8 (citing Knight v. State, 252 So.3d 1108, 1113 (Ala. Crim. App. 2017).) In Bagley v. State, 186 So.3d 488 (Ala. Crim. App. 2015), this Court faced a situation nearly identical to the one......