Rowland v. State, No. 2008-CP-00731-COA (Miss. App. 6/9/2009)
| Decision Date | 09 June 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 2008-CP-00731-COA.,2008-CP-00731-COA. |
| Parties | ROBERT STANLEY ROWLAND APPELLANT v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI APPELLEE. |
| Court | Mississippi Court of Appeals |
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE: OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, BY: JOHN R. HENRY.
EN BANC.
ROBERTS, J., FOR THE COURT:
¶ 1. This is an appeal of the Washington County Circuit Court's decision to dismiss Robert Stanley Rowland's motion for post-conviction relief. We are called upon to determine whether Rowland's claim of a "fundamental" constitutional double jeopardy violation justifies waiver of three different statutory bars to post-conviction relief. For reasons later expressed, we decline the invitation.
¶ 2. More than thirty years ago, Rowland pled guilty to two counts of capital murder and two counts of armed robbery. A central factor in this case is that the two counts of capital murder were elevated to that status because the homicides were committed in the process of armed robberies. Rowland argued that the circuit court should vacate the two armed robbery convictions because the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy precluded sentencing him for both armed robbery and capital murder. The circuit court found that, having pled guilty in 1979 to the charges at issue, Rowland's motion was time-barred. Accordingly, the circuit court summarily dismissed Rowland's motion without conducting an evidentiary hearing. Aggrieved, Rowland appeals and claims: (1) the trial court erred when it found his motion was time-barred, and (2) his guilty pleas and convictions for the two counts of capital murder and the two underlying counts of armed robbery violate the constitutional prohibitions against double jeopardy and are, therefore, the equivalent of illegal sentences. For reasons that will be elaborated on below, we find no error and affirm the judgment of the circuit court.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
¶ 3. The record before this Court is scant at best, and must be reconstructed from events that transpired more than thirty years ago. On February 16, 1979, Rowland, Donald Keeton, and Keith Ouzts concealed their identities with masks and armed themselves with shotguns. That night, they went into the Leflore County Country Club where Pat Bolton, James Campbell, Billy Floyd, Joe Floyd, Paul Hughes, Steve McHann, G.W. Putnam, and O.B. Singleton were gathered playing poker.
¶ 4. Rowland and his co-defendants ordered the eight men attending the poker game to line up and face a wall. According to Rowland and his co-defendants, one of them reached across the poker table to pick up some money, and as he did so, his shotgun discharged, shooting Campbell in the back.1 Campbell died as a result. At that point, Hughes ran, attempting to escape. He too was shot in the back as he attempted to run from the room. Hughes died as well.
¶ 5. Apparently, either Rowland or one of his two co-defendants took one of the victims' car keys. Rowland and his co-defendants all escaped in the stolen car. Two of the armed robbery victims were able to discretely follow Rowland and his two co-defendants and they obtained a description sufficient to aid the authorities. All three defendants confessed to their heinous crimes.
¶ 6. Rowland, Keeton, and Ouzts were jointly indicted by a Leflore County grand jury on multiple indictments charging two capital murders and at least two armed robberies. Statutory authority for multi-count indictments was non-existent at that time. The record is incomplete, but it appears that there may well have been other armed robbery charges connected to other victims and other possible charges.
¶ 7. Due to pretrial publicity, the circuit court transferred venue to Washington County. Facing the possibility of being twice sentenced to death, Rowland decided to enter into plea negotiations with the district attorney's office. In March 1979, George Everett was the district attorney who prosecuted Rowland and Rowland's two co-defendants. A plea bargain was reached and Rowland pled guilty pursuant to that understanding. The Honorable B.B. Wilkes was the circuit judge who accepted Rowland's guilty pleas. During the subsequent guilty plea hearing, the circuit court asked the district attorney to summarize the facts in the case.2 The district attorney responded as follows:
On the night of February 16, 1979, a group of citizens was at the Leflore County Country Club, a short distance outside of Greenwood in Leflore County, Mississippi, at a social event, that social event being a poker game, when three individuals, masked and dressed similarly with their identification completely concealed and armed with shotguns, entered the room and proceeded to perform an armed robbery with firearms of this group of individuals. They had the men line up against the wall of the building or the room with their backs toward the defendants. And as one of the defendants was reaching across the table where the game had been held to pick up the money, a shotgun that he was holding discharged and shot James Campbell in the back, and [sic] killing James Campbell. The shotgun then discharged again and the shot went into the ceiling of the room. At that time, Paul Hughes, one of the participants in the game, broke and ran to get out of the place and he was shot in the back and killed by one of the individuals in the robbery. They then secured an automobile from one of the participants in the game and made their getaway from the Country Club, which they abandoned a short distance away where they got in their own automobile. They were followed by two of the people involved in the game — discreetly followed — who got enough description to aid the authorities, which led to much hard work in the arrest of these three who all confessed to that crime.
¶ 8. Rowland and his two co-defendants were represented by counsel. They all were offered the same plea bargain. All three pled guilty to the capital murder of Campbell and Hughes. All three pled guilty to the armed robbery of Singleton and Bolton. For the two capital murder charges, the circuit court sentenced all three defendants to two consecutive life sentences.3 The controlling law at that time made all three defendants eligible for parole consideration after they served ten years of each sentence. Miss. Code Ann. § 47-7-3(1) (1972).
¶ 9. For the two armed robbery pleas, the circuit court sentenced all three defendants to two twenty-four-year sentences to run consecutively to the sentences for capital murder and one another. Again, the controlling law at that time made all three defendants eligible for parole consideration on the armed robberies after serving the first ten years of each sentence. See Miss. Code Ann. § 47-7-3(1)(d)(i) (Rev. 2004). It should be noted that Rowland and his two co-defendants got exactly the sentences for which they bargained.
¶ 10. On November 13, 2007, Rowland filed his most recent motion for post-conviction relief. Rowland requested that the circuit court vacate his two armed robbery convictions as violations of the constitutional prohibitions against double jeopardy. The circuit court found that Rowland's motion was time-barred and summarily dismissed Rowland's motion with prejudice. Rowland appeals. Importantly, Rowland makes no claim of any error in his two capital murder pleas that were part of his plea agreement with the prosecution. Logically, Rowland could have just as effectively attacked his capital murder sentences under a double jeopardy claim while allowing his armed robbery sentences to remain intact. If Rowland is correct and the armed robbery sentences must be vacated, he would be entitled to immediate parole eligibility.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
¶ 11. The standard of review applied by this Court when considering the appeal of a trial court's decision to dismiss a motion for post-conviction relief is well settled. Williams v. State, 872 So. 2d 711, 712 (¶2) (Miss. Ct. App. 2004). This Court will not disturb the factual findings of the trial court unless they are found to be clearly erroneous. However, where questions of law are raised, this Court reviews them de novo. Id.
ANALYSIS
¶ 12. The Mississippi Uniform Post-Conviction Collateral Relief Act (MUPCCRA) became law in 1984. The Mississippi Supreme Court has held that our state applies the MUPCCRA prospectively from its date of enactment, April 17, 1984. Odom v. State, 483 So. 2d 343, 344 (Miss. 1986). "Individuals convicted prior to April 17, 1984, ha[d] three (3) years from April 17, 1984, to file their petition for post[-]conviction relief." Id. Rowland pled guilty in 1979, and he filed his current motion on November 13, 2007. Within his most recent motion for post-conviction relief, Rowland admitted that he had filed prior motions for post-conviction relief attacking his convictions, but he claims that he never attacked his convictions based on a double jeopardy argument. Rowland gives no reason for his failure to raise the double jeopardy issue in his first motion for post-conviction relief, much less his additional ones. Accordingly, Rowland must overcome the time bar as set forth in Mississippi Code Annotated section 99-39-5(2) (Rev. 2007), the res judicata bar as set forth in Mississippi Code Annotated section 99-39-21 (Rev. 2007), and the successive-writ bar established in Mississippi Code Annotated section 99-39-23(6) (Supp. 2008).
¶ 13. Rowland claims he should not be subject to the time bar or successive-writ bar established in Mississippi Code Annotated sections 99-39-5(2) and 99-39-23(6), respectively, because the right to be free from an illegal sentence is a "fundamental" right. However, Rowland attacks his armed robbery convictions, and we find that a twenty-four-year sentence for armed robbery is not an illegal sentence. The...
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