Lee v. State
| Decision Date | 16 February 1990 |
| Docket Number | No. 82S01-9002-PC-00140,82S01-9002-PC-00140 |
| Citation | 550 N.E.2d 304 |
| Parties | Michael E. LEE, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee. |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
In this case, two convictions and the habitual offender status of appellant Lee were affirmed on direct appeal. Lee v. State (1988), Ind., 519 N.E.2d 146. His original motion to correct errors included an allegation of the insufficiency of evidence of habitual offender status, but that issue was not argued in the direct appeal. He did, however, argue related claims on direct appeal, namely that the trial court had committed error in admitting certain items of evidence at the habitual offender proceeding.
In this, his first post-conviction petition, Lee alleged for the first time that the proof at the sentencing hearing did not show the proper sequence of prior convictions as required by I.C. 35-50-2-8. The trial court summarily dismissed this post-conviction petition for failure to allege or undertake to argue that there was a sufficient reason for not asserting the claim in the direct appeal as required by Rule 1, Section 8 of the post-conviction rules, or to contend that his counsel had been ineffective in not doing so. The Court of Appeals affirmed with memorandum opinion.
On transfer, Lee claims that the decision of the Court of Appeals contravenes the recent opinion of this Court in Williams v. State (1988), Ind., 525 N.E.2d 1238. Williams holds that the failure of the record to support the proper sequence of prior convictions, and thus their prior and unrelated character, provides the basis for a claim which is fundamental in nature and, as such, may be raised in post-conviction despite the fact that it was available on direct appeal and there was a failure to raise it there. Because of the profound impact of a determination of habitual offender status upon the length of sentence, the record must provide a rational basis upon which to conclude that the convictions are in their proper statutory sequence. Steelman v. State (1985), Ind., 486 N.E.2d 523.
The courts below relied upon the case of Music v. State (1986), Ind., 489 N.E.2d 949. That is an appeal in a post-conviction case in which the defendant sought to raise the sufficiency of evidence to...
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