Perkins v. State

• Citation: 541 N.E.2d 927
• Decision Date: 01 August 1989
• Docket Number: No. 49S00-8705-PC-00505,49S00-8705-PC-00505
• Court: Supreme Court of Indiana
• Parties: Robert Lee PERKINS, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.

Page 927

541 N.E.2d 927

Robert Lee PERKINS, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.

No. 49S00-8705-PC-00505.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Aug. 1, 1989.

Susan K. Carpenter, Public Defender, Stephen T. Owens, Deputy Public Defender, Indianapolis, for appellant.

Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen., Mary E. Dreyer, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.

DeBRULER, Justice.

Appellant was charged by affidavit with robbery and inflicting injury in the commission of a robbery. A court trial was held in 1972 which resulted in a finding and judgment of guilty on both counts, and an appeal was taken. On appeal, the convictions were affirmed. Perkins v. State (1973), 261 Ind. 209, 301 N.E.2d 513. In 1979 appellant filed a pro se petition for post-conviction relief which was later withdrawn. In 1984, appellant filed his second petition for post-conviction relief, which was submitted for hearing, and which resulted in a judgment denying relief. This appeal has followed.

In his petition, appellant claimed that he did not knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily waive his right to trial by jury. The trial court concluded that appellant had failed to sustain his burden of proof on this allegation, that he had properly waived his right to trial by jury, and that the issue was waived for purposes of post-conviction relief when not included in his direct appeal.

The record of proceedings for this appeal consists of the record of proceedings of the initial trial and appeal, the testimony of the original defense counsel at the post-conviction hearing that he had no recollection of advising appellant, but that he and the trial judge routinely and habitually advised accused persons of their right to trial by jury and extracted some form of waiver before proceeding with a bench trial, and the testimony of appellant at that same hearing that he had not been advised of his right to trial by jury and never consented to waiving that right. The record of proceedings appurtenant to the initial trial and appeal show that appellant was represented and appeared with counsel at all important stages of the prosecution, but contains no reference to an advice of the right to trial by jury or to any action on the part of appellant or his counsel, in writing or viva voce, waiving that right or consenting to a bench trial. There was no objection to a bench trial raised by appellant or his counsel before or at trial, and no claim was made in the motion to correct errors or on appeal that the right to trial by jury had not been accorded.

The record likewise reflects that on or about the time of the initial trial in 1972, appellant entered pleas on two other felonies and was sentenced on those convictions. It also reflects that the trial court set the case for trial several times and appellant signed a series of written continuance motions. None of the entries or motions for continuance refer to a setting as one for a jury trial.

The Sixth Amendment, applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, provides a person charged in state court with a criminal offense the "right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury." Article I, Sec. 13 of the Indiana Constitution, as well as all other state constitutions, do likewise. The right is fundamental and personal and has stood for more than three hundred years as a safeguard against using courts as instruments of persecution. In re Oliver 333 U.S. 257, 68 S.Ct. 499, 92 L.Ed. 682 (1948); Duncan v. Louisiana 391 U.S. 145, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968). Because of the great public interest in this mode of resolving criminal charges, a successful waiver of jury trial cannot be made by the accused without the assent of the government and the judge. Good v. State (1977), 267 Ind. 29,...