Meeks v. State

• Decision Date: 15 July 1992
• Docket Number: No. 89-KA-1080,89-KA-1080
• Citation: 604 So.2d 748
• Parties: Alvin J. MEEKS v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 748

604 So.2d 748

Alvin J. MEEKS v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 89-KA-1080.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

July 15, 1992.

Jack R. Jones, III, Taylor Jones Alexander Sorrell & McFall, Southaven, Alan Chambers, Memphis, Tenn., for appellant.

Michael C. Moore, Atty. Gen., Charles W. Maris, Jr., Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

Before ROY NOBLE LEE, C.J., and ROBERTSON and SULLIVAN, JJ.

ROBERTSON, Justice, for the Court:

I.

Today's appeal challenges multiple prosecutions arising from a tragic homicide and kidnapping within an estranged family, and presents a number of questions for review, most important of which concerns the right of persons to be shielded from double jeopardy. We hold in the end the defendant lawfully convicted of capital murder, burglary and assault, but acquit and discharge him of kidnapping as he was put in jeopardy therefor in his capital murder prosecution.

II.

On August 7, 1988, Tana Renee Meeks, having separated from her husband, Alvin Meeks (Meeks), was living at the home of her sister-in-law, Linda Meeks, in rural Alcorn County. Alvin Meeks had been on an all night drinking spree and early that morning, arrived at Linda's house demanding to see Tana. Meeks was armed with a pistol. Linda twice refused him entrance, but Meeks would not leave. Tana then went to the door and asked him to go away. Meeks pushed the door open, forced his way into the house, grabbed Tana by the hair and began pulling her away. In the process of removing Tana from the house, Meeks managed to shoot and kill Linda. He forced Tana into his car. Before leaving, he fired a shot at Christopher Meeks, Linda's eight-year-old son. He then drove off, beginning an odyssey that lasted for two days, and ended only when Tana managed to escape.

On October 8, 1988, the grand jury of Alcorn County returned a four count indictment, charging Alvin J. Meeks with the crimes of capital murder, kidnapping, burglary and assault. The trial was held in Monroe County on a change of venue. The jury returned verdicts of guilty on all counts and the Circuit Court sentenced Meeks to terms of life, thirty years, and ten years, respectively, on the capital murder, kidnapping and burglary charges, the sentences to be served consecutively. The Court sentenced Meeks to six months in the Alcorn County jail for the assault charge, that sentence to run concurrently.

Meeks now appeals to this Court.

III.

Meeks argues the Circuit Court erred when it denied his motion for judgment of acquittal notwithstanding the verdict on Count II of the indictment, the charge that he kidnapped his estranged wife, Tana.

We begin with the indictment which charges, inter alia, that Meeks

COUNT I: did wilfully, unlawfully, and feloniously, and with deliberate design kill and murder Linda Meeks, a human being while he, the said Alvin J. Meeks, was engaged in the felony crime of kidnapping, ¹ in violation of Mississippi Code Annotated, Section 97-3-19(2)(e);

COUNT II: in said County and State on the 7th day of August, A.D., 1988 did wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously without lawful authority kidnap, or forcibly seize and confine Tana Renee Meeks against her will, in violation of Mississippi Code Annotated, Section 97-3-53 (Supplement 1987); ...

At the close of the case for the prosecution, Meeks moved that the Court direct a verdict of acquittal on the kidnapping count, citing the double jeopardy clauses of federal and state constitutions. ² At the conclusion of all the evidence, Meeks renewed the substantive point via his request for a peremptory instruction on Count II. The Circuit Court balked again and submitted the case to the jury, which found Meeks guilty of kidnapping. Thereafter, Meeks moved for a judgment of acquittal notwithstanding the verdict, and that motion was denied as well. The Circuit Court then imposed the thirty years sentence consecutive to two of his other sentences.

Meeks says that the State of Mississippi has placed him twice in jeopardy for the kidnapping of his estranged wife, Tana. This was first done in Count I in that "the felony crime of kidnapping" was used as the underlying felony to elevate the homicide of Linda Meeks to capital murder. ³ Thereafter, in Count II, the State again charged, prosecuted, convicted and sentenced him for the kidnapping of Tana Renee Meeks. ⁴

Meeks reminds us that, not only was he convicted of capital murder, the offense of which the kidnapping of Tana Renee Meeks was a constituent part, he was thereafter subjected to a sentencing trial wherein the State sought the penalty of death. To be sure, the jury unanimously decided to fix Meeks' sentence at life imprisonment. Meeks' present point is that he could never have been exposed to the death penalty had the jury not found him guilty, not only of the murder of Linda Meeks, but also the kidnapping of Tana Renee Meeks.

At the outset we note there is no offense to the constitution in the Circuit Court's putting Meeks to trial simultaneously on all counts and charges in the indictment. Ohio v. Johnson, 467 U.S. 493, 500-01, 104 S.Ct. 2536, 2541-42, 81 L.Ed.2d 425, 434 (1984). The question is whether Meeks may be punished for Section 97-3-19(2)(e)/capital murder/kidnapping by a sentence of life imprisonment and thereafter by a consecutive thirty year sentence for Section 97-3-53 kidnapping.

We begin with the traditional homage to Blockburger, our most durable gloss on double jeopardy jurisprudence. See Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 303, 52 S.Ct. 180, 181-182, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932). Blockburger arose in the context of multiple punishments imposed for a single offense. It accepts that legislatures, federal there but state as well, are free to define crimes and prescribe punishments. See Upshaw v. State, 350 So.2d 1358, 1360 (Miss.1977); Gabriel v. Brame, 200 Miss. 767, 773, 28 So.2d 581, 582 (1947). It holds, however, that the courts may not impose for one de jure offense more than lawfully the prescribed punishment. See North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 717, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 2076, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969).

The Blockburger rule has particular application in the lesser included offense context. If an individual is charged with two offenses, and all of the elements of one are included within and are a part of a second greater offense, Blockburger intervenes. It charges that we compare statutory offenses, as indicted, and see whether each requires proof of a fact which the other does not. The several prosecutions for capital murder and the burglary of Linda Meeks' home and the assault on Christopher Meeks pass muster under this standard. See Brock v. State, 530 So.2d 146, 149-50 (Miss.1988); Hughes v. State, 401 So.2d 1100, 1102-1105 (Miss.1981). On the other hand, where no further evidence is needed to establish the lesser offense, once the prosecution has proved the greater offense, punishment for the lesser is barred. Blockburger, 284 U.S. at 304, 52 S.Ct. at 182, 76 L.Ed. at 309; Whalen v. United States, 445 U.S. 684, 692, 100 S.Ct. 1432, 1438, 63 L.Ed.2d 715, 724 (1980). Put another way, the defendant may be convicted and punished for one of those offenses--the greater or the lesser included--but not both. See Grady v. Corbin, 495 U.S. 508, 517-18, 110 S.Ct. 2084, 2091-92, 109 L.Ed.2d 548, 562 (1990); Illinois v. Vitale, 447 U.S. 410, 419-20, 100 S.Ct. 2260, 2266-67, 65 L.Ed.2d 228, 237-38 (1980); Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 169, 97 S.Ct. 2221, 2227, 53 L.Ed.2d 187 (1977); Harrelson v. State, 569 So.2d 295, 296-97 (Miss.1990).

All of this fits the present point quite nicely. Here the legislature has prescribed death or life imprisonment, as the jury may determine, as the punishment for the murder/kidnapping variant of capital murder. Miss.Code Ann. Sec. 97-3-21 (Supp.1988). The jury gave life. Blockburger on its face pretermits an additional thirty years imprisonment for the self-same kidnapping. Jones v. Thomas, 491 U.S. 376, 109 S.Ct. 2522, 105 L.Ed.2d 322 (1989). The Count I/Section 97-3-19(2)(e) charge of capital murder effectively put Meeks in jeopardy for kidnapping Tana Renee Meeks. We say this in the sense that the kidnapping was a constituent element of the capital murder charge. The Count II/Section 97-3-53 charge of kidnapping called for proof of the same kidnapping of Tana Renee Meeks. To be sure, Count I calls for more, proof of the kidnapping-plus, but nothing in Count II required that the prosecution prove a fact not necessary to Count I. Conceptually Count II/kidnapping is a garden variety lesser included offense to Count I/capital murder and may not be separately punished, simultaneously or consecutively.

A case close to the mark, but for today's fact of concurrent and not subsequent prosecution, is Harris v. Oklahoma, 433 U.S. 682, 97 S.Ct. 2912, 53 L.Ed.2d 1054 (1977). In Harris, the defendant was convicted of felony-murder in Oklahoma. The underlying felony was robbery with firearms, proof of which provided the intent necessary for the felony murder conviction. The defendant was then brought to trial and convicted on a separate charge of robbery with firearms. He protested on the basis of double jeopardy. The Supreme Court held:

"When as here, conviction of a greater crime, murder, cannot be had without conviction of the lesser crime, robbery with firearms, the Double Jeopardy Clause bars prosecution of the lesser crime after conviction of the greater one. [fn. omitted] [citation omitted] [A] person [who] has been tried and convicted for a crime which has various incidents included in it, ... cannot be a second time tried for one of those incidents without being twice put in jeopardy for the same offense." [citation omitted].

Harris v. Oklahoma, 433 U.S. 682, 97 S.Ct. 2912, 53 L.Ed.2d 1054 (1977). On today's indictment, Meeks could not have been found guilty of capital murder had he not been found guilty of kidnapping Tana.

Whalen v. United States, 445 U.S. 684, 100 S.Ct. 1432, 63 L.Ed.2d 715...