State v. Culbertson
| Decision Date | 19 September 2017 |
| Docket Number | No. COA17-136,COA17-136 |
| Citation | 255 N.C.App. 635,805 S.E.2d 511 |
| Court | North Carolina Court of Appeals |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. Sergio Montez CULBERTSON |
Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Assistant Attorney General Susannah P. Holloway, for the State.
Joseph P. Lattimore, for defendant-appellant.
Sergio Montez Culbertson ("Defendant") appeals from judgment entered following his guilty plea to assault inflicting serious physical injury on a law enforcement officer, assault inflicting injury on a law enforcement officer, five drug related charges, resisting arrest, driving while license revoked and a parking violation. The State has filed a motion to dismiss Defendant's appeal. Defendant also filed a petition for writ of certiorari seeking our review contemporaneously with his brief.
The State's motion to dismiss the appeal is allowed. In our discretion, we invoke N.C. R. App. P. 2 to suspend Rule 21 of the appellate rules, allow Defendant's petition and issue our writ of certiorari. Defendant's petition seeks review of judgments entered upon indictments, which the State concedes are facially invalid and do not provide the trial court with jurisdiction on two charges.
At the entry of Defendant's guilty plea, the State forecast the following evidence. On 21 January 2015, Concord Police Officer M. Hanson was on patrol when he saw a truck parked in the street and facing the wrong direction of travel. The truck was parked approximately 900 feet from the boundary of Caldwell Park. Officer Hanson observed Defendant walking away from the truck. Officer Hanson called other officers to inform them he had stopped Defendant and exited his vehicle to speak with Defendant. Concord Police Officer A. J. Vandevoorde arrived at the scene, and the officers conversed with Defendant near Defendant's truck.
Officer Vandevoorde smelled marijuana inside Defendant's truck and asked Defendant for consent to search the vehicle. Defendant consented, but claimed he was having trouble opening the truck door with the key in his possession. Officer Vandevoorde opened the passenger door of the truck. Officer Vandevoorde asked Defendant not to reach inside the truck after they opened the door.
Against Officer Vandevoorde's instruction, Defendant reached into the car as the officer was opening the door. Both officers moved to restrain Defendant from putting his arm inside the truck. Defendant became combative and began to struggle with both officers. The officers discharged their tasers on Defendant several times, but Defendant continued to resist them. Officer Vandevoorde eventually wrestled Defendant onto the ground, where Officer Hanson attempted to place him in handcuffs. During the fight, Defendant yelled "Momma, get my weed out from under the car seat, under the driver's seat."
The officers called in for backup. Several other officers responded to the request for backup and assisted to restrain Defendant and secure him on the backseat of a police car. Officer Vandevoorde searched Defendant's truck and found a diaper bag containing more than 300 grams of marijuana, which was packaged in several smaller bags. Officer Vandevoorde also found a plastic bag, under the driver's seat, which contained several smaller bags of heroin.
Officers Hanson and Vandevoorde both sustained injuries in the fight with Defendant. Officer Vandevoorde sustained scrapes and lacerations on his knees and hands. Officer Hanson injured his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and the meniscus of his knee, which led to several surgeries and rehabilitation time to recover.
On 29 August 2016, Defendant entered guilty pleas to: assault inflicting serious physical injury on a law enforcement officer (Hanson); assault inflicting injury on a law enforcement officer (Vandevoorde); possession of drug paraphernalia; maintaining a vehicle/dwelling place for the purpose of keeping and selling controlled substances; trafficking in opium or heroin; possession with intent to sell or deliver ("PWISD") marijuana within 1000 feet of a park; PWISD heroin within 1000 feet of a park; and, possession of marijuana.
Defendant was sentenced as a prior record level II offender. Defendant received an active sentence of 90 to 120 months and a fine for the trafficking charge. The court consolidated the offense of PWISD marijuana near a park with one count of assault inflicting serious injury on a law enforcement officer and sentenced Defendant to 29 to 47 months active imprisonment to run consecutively to the trafficking sentence. Defendant's sentences on the remaining counts were suspended, with two consecutive 60 month terms of probation to follow the active sentences.
Subsequently, the parties realized the court and parties had stated incorrect offense class levels and sentences for some of the offenses. In order to correct the sentence, the court did not adjourn the session of court where Defendant's plea was accepted. The court informed Defendant that the resentencing would reduce the amount of active time he would serve, if his probationary sentences were revoked. Defendant nor his counsel asked for and Defendant was not afforded an opportunity to withdraw his guilty plea. Defendant was re-sentenced on 6 September 2016 as follows:
[T]he Court recognizes that we needed to correct the judgment from last week because we did have an incorrect class on one of the cases in which the Court sentenced. The trafficking sentence will remain the same. The Court will then sentence under the possession with intent to sell or deliver marijuana within a thousand feet of a school in [15 CRS] 50339, to the 29—minimum 29 maximum 47 months. The Court would then consolidate the felony assault on a law enforcement officer inflicting physical injury with that charge. And then with respect to the assault inflicting serious personal injury—physical injury on a law enforcement officer, the Class F, the Court sentences him to the minimum 25 maximum 47 months, suspended for five years, I believe it was, supervised probation.
Upon the rendering of his new sentence, Defendant orally entered notice of appeal. Defendant filed his brief and a petition for writ of certiorari at the same time to seek review of the judgments and sentences imposed against him.
In his brief and in his petition for writ of certiorari, Defendant contends the trial court lacked jurisdiction to accept his guilty pleas on the charges of trafficking, PWISD marijuana within 1000 feet of a park and PWISD heroin within 1000 feet of a park. Defendant also asserts that his pleas to these charges were not voluntary, because of erroneous statements made at the time of the entry of his pleas.
Further, Defendant argues the State failed to present a sufficient factual basis to support his guilty plea to the assault charges.
Defendant acknowledges he has no right to appeal the judgments entered. "A defendant's right to appeal in a criminal proceeding is entirely a creation of state statute." State v. Biddix , ––– N.C. App. ––––, ––––, 780 S.E.2d 863, 865 (2015) (). Without express statutory authority, a criminal defendant does not have a right to appeal a judgment entered under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1444. Id. ; see also State v. Ahearn , 307 N.C. 584, 605, 300 S.E.2d 689, 702 (1983).
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1444 provides:
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1444 (2015).
Defendant correctly recognizes he raises no issues which provide him an appeal as of right pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1444(a2). The State's motion to dismiss Defendant's appeal is allowed. Defendant's purported appeal is dismissed.
To support his petition that a writ of certiorari should be allowed, Defendant cites our Supreme Court in State v. Wallace that "where an indictment is alleged to be invalid on its face, thereby depriving the trial court of its jurisdiction, a challenge to that indictment may be made at any time, even if it was not contested in the trial court." State v. Wallace , 351 N.C. 481, 503, 528 S.E.2d 326, 341, cert....
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Stephenson
...this indictment is invalid on its face. "Invalid indictments deprive the trial court of its jurisdiction." State v. Culbertson , ––– N.C. App. ––––, ––––, 805 S.E.2d 511, 516 (2017). "When the record shows a lack of jurisdiction in the lower court, the appropriate action on the part of the ......