Mann v. State
| Decision Date | 22 January 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. S00G0478.,S00G0478. |
| Parties | MANN v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Steven E. Phillips, Atlanta, for appellant.
Paul L. Howard, Jr., District Attorney, Bettieanne C. Hart, Anne E. Green, Robert C. McBurney, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellee.
In this case the appellant, Calvin Mann, appealed to the Court of Appeals of Georgia from his conviction for possessing cocaine with the intent to distribute, his third conviction for possessing a controlled substance with the intent to distribute, and his ninth felony conviction in all. The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction.1 We then granted certiorari to consider two questions. The first is whether the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the trial court was not required to sentence Mann to life in prison under OCGA § 17-10-7(a), the general felony recidivist statute, but instead had the discretion under OCGA § 16-13-30(d), the specific recidivist statute for certain drug offenses, to sentence Mann either to life in prison or to a term of not less than ten years nor more than 40 years in prison. The second issue is whether the Court of Appeals erred in holding that Mann was subject to general impeachment by means of a previous felony conviction that the State introduced as "other transaction" evidence in its case-in-chief. We conclude that the Court of Appeals properly held that the trial court had discretion in sentencing Mann under the specific recidivist provisions of § 16-13-30(d) and was not required to sentence Mann to life in prison under the general recidivist provisions of § 17-10-7(a). We also conclude, however, that the Court of Appeals erred in holding that Mann was subject to general impeachment by means of the previous conviction in question. Although we conclude that the Court of Appeals erred in this regard, we conclude that the error was harmless, and we therefore affirm Mann's conviction.
1. Mann was found guilty of possessing cocaine with the intent to distribute, his third conviction for the possession of a controlled substance with the intent to distribute and his ninth felony conviction. The trial court sentenced Mann to life without parole as a recidivist. Before trial, the State had offered Mann a plea bargain with a sentencing recommendation of seven years, to serve two, and the balance on probation. Mann, however, rejected the plea bargain. In his motion for new trial, Mann contended that he had received ineffective assistance of trial counsel because he rejected the plea bargain due to his trial counsel's failure to inform him that the only sentence he could receive if convicted was life without parole. In this regard, at the hearing on the motion for new trial, defense counsel testified that he told Mann that he could be sentenced from a range of ten years to life in prison, and that, as an eight time recidivist, he would not be eligible for parole.
The trial court denied Mann's motion for new trial, and on appeal to the Court of Appeals, Mann contended that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to inform him that he would receive a mandatory life sentence without parole. The Court of Appeals, however, ruled that Mann was incorrect in his assertion that he could only be sentenced to life without parole. The Court instead held that the sentencing judge had the discretion to sentence Mann under § 16-13-30(d) to "any sentence within the statutory mandatory minimum and maximum sentence range or else to impose a life sentence."2 For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the Court of Appeals did not err.
Under § 17-10-7(a), a defendant convicted of a second felony offense must be sentenced to the maximum time provided by law, which, in the present case, would be life in prison.
In interpreting the interplay of § 16-13-30(d) and § 17-10-7, we must bear in mind the principle that "a specific statute will prevail over a general statute, absent any indication of a contrary legislative intent."3 In this case, § 16-13-30(d) provides a specific sentencing scheme for defendants convicted more than once of possessing cocaine with the intent to distribute under § 16-13-30(b). For this reason, the general recidivist scheme of § 17-10-7 will apply to multiple convictions under § 16-13-30(b) only if § 16-13-30(d) permits the applicability of § 17-10-7.4 Finally, in interpreting criminal statutes, it is axiomatic that any ambiguities must be construed most favorably to the defendant.5
In this regard, it is undisputed that § 16-13-30(d) precludes the application of § 17-10-7(a) to a second conviction under § 16-13-30. Mann, however, contends that because § 16-13-30(d) specifies that § 17-10-7(a) is inapplicable only to a second conviction under § 16-13-30, § 16-13-30(d) should be interpreted as intending for § 17-10-7(a) to apply to a third or subsequent offense under § 16-13-30(b). We conclude, however, that it is equally as reasonable, if not more so, to interpret § 16-13-30(d) as granting a trial court the discretion to sentence a defendant for a third or subsequent offense under § 16-13-30(b) to either life in prison or to a term in prison of not less than ten years and not more than forty years. First, the second sentence of § 16-13-30(d) plainly provides that trial courts have such sentencing discretion when a defendant is convicted of a second or subsequent offense under § 16-13-30(b). Moreover, although the first clause of the last sentence of § 16-13-30(d) provides that § 17-10-7(a) "shall not apply to a sentence imposed for a second" offense under § 16-13-30(b), the second clause of that sentence, which provides that the "remaining provisions of Code Section 17-10-7 shall apply for any subsequent offense," can reasonably be interpreted as precluding the application of § 17-10-7(a) to a third or subsequent offense under § 16-13-30(b).
In sum, because the interpretation of § 16-13-30(d) that grants trial courts discretion in sentencing for a third or subsequent offense under § 16-13-30(b) is as reasonable as the interpretation advanced by Mann, and because criminal statutes must be construed most favorably to the defendants,6 we conclude that the Court of Appeals properly interpreted § 16-13-30(d) as granting trial courts the discretion to sentence defendants for a third or subsequent conviction to a term of between ten to forty years in prison or to life in prison.
2. Over Mann's objection, the trial court permitted the State to introduce evidence of Mann's prior conviction for the possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute as a similar transaction. To prove the prior transaction, the State introduced testimony from the arresting officer, as well as a copy of Mann's conviction. At the time the evidence of the prior transaction was introduced, the trial court gave a proper limiting instruction. Mann also testified at trial, and disputed the State's version of the events in the present case. During closing arguments, the prosecutor relied on Mann's prior conviction to attack the credibility of Mann's testimony. Mann's counsel failed to object to this argument, and in his motion for new trial, Mann contended that his trial counsel was ineffective in failing to do so, as it was improper for the State to use similar transaction evidence to attack his credibility.
The trial court denied the motion for new trial, and Mann raised the same issue before the Court of Appeals. That Court ruled that, because Mann testified at trial, he was subject to impeachment based upon the prior conviction, as that conviction was "both a felony and a crime involving moral turpitude."7 For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the Court of Appeals erred in this ruling.
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