State v. Honeycutt
| Decision Date | 16 April 2002 |
| Docket Number | WD600100 |
| Parties | State of Missouri, Appellant, v. Benjamin Thomas Honeycutt, Respondent. WD60010 Missouri Court of Appeals Western District 0 |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Appeal From: Circuit Court of Lafayette County, Hon. Dennis A. Rolf
Counsel for Appellant: Terrence M. Messonnier
Counsel for Respondent: John B. Neher
Opinion Summary:
The state pursued a dormant misdemeanor charge on a case filed three years earlier. The court dismissed the case for lack of prosecution. The state appealed, arguing that the court should have relied on Missouri's speedy trial act as the basis for dismissal.
Division holds: The appeal is dismissed for lack of final appealable judgment. The trial court had authority only to dismiss a criminal case without prejudice.
This appeal concerns Missouri criminal procedure where there has been a prolonged period of prosecutorial torpor following arraignment. The disposition of this appeal necessitates a study of the interrelationship between granting relief under the grounds specified in the Speedy Trial Act, section 545.780 RSMo. 20001 (set forth infra) and any inherent power of a trial judge to dismiss an information for lack of prosecution. Factual and Procedural History2
On December 22, 1997, the appellant, the State, filed separate misdemeanor charges of driving while intoxicated, section 577.010 (hereafter DWI), and failure to drive on the right half of the roadway, section 304.015 (hereafter Failure), against respondent Honeycutt arising out of an incident on December 9, 1997 in Lafayette County. Both charges were filed by the Uniform Complaint and Summons (two traffic tickets) in the Associate Division of Circuit Court. After the cases were transferred to the Circuit Court, the State filed a formal, typewritten information on the DWI, separate from the Uniform Complaint and Summons.
Honeycutt's counsel filed an entry of appearance in both cases. On March 24, 1998, Honeycutt requested a jury trial on both cases. Both matters were sent to the presiding judge for assignment, with the next court date set for April 27, 1998. However, on April 27, 1998, only the DWI case was formally called on the record. The DWI case was tried to a jury on October 22, 1998. Honeycutt was acquitted.
After Judge Dennis Rolf took the bench in January of 2001 and became the Circuit Judge for the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, the court noticed that the Failure case had been inactive and was still pending. The court scheduled the case for hearing on March 19, 2001. No record was made on that date, and the case was continued until April 30, 2001. At that point, Honeycutt orally moved to dismiss the case based on statute of limitations and res judicata grounds. The case was continued to May 14, 2001. On May 7, 2001, Honeycutt filed his written motion to dismiss on the statute of limitations and res judicata grounds; the State filed its suggestions in opposition. The court on May 14, 2001, denied Honeycutt's motion, but then on its own dismissed the case for lack of prosecution.
The State appeals the dismissal, asserting two points. First, the State argues that the trial court erred in sua sponte dismissing its case for lack of prosecution because the State was denied due process for absence of notice. Second, the State argues that the trial court erred in sua sponte dismissing its case because the case should be analyzed as a speedy-trial issue under Missouri's Speedy Trial Act, set forth infra. Right to appeal
Although not raised by the parties, the court first notes that the state's right to appeal is purely statutory. State v. Hellems, 13 S.W.3d 302, 304 (Mo. App. 2000). That right is found under section 547.200.2, which states: "The state, in any criminal prosecution, shall be allowed an appeal ... in all other criminal cases except in those where the possible outcome of such an appeal would result in double jeopardy for the defendant."
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that no person "shall be subject for the same offense or twice put in jeopardy of life or limb." This provision is applicable to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 787, 794 (1969). Protection from double jeopardy is not necessarily triggered by successive prosecutions for a single offense. The test, known as the "same-element" analysis, is whether each offense contains an element not contained in the other; if not, the Double Jeopardy Clause bars a successive prosecution. State v. Burns, 877 S.W.2d 111, 112 (Mo. banc 1994)(citing Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299 (1932)).
In determining whether the same conduct of a person may establish the commission of more than one offense such that a defendant may be prosecuted for each such offense, the appropriate statute is section 556.041, which appears to be a codification of Blockburger. Id. at 112. That statute allows multiple prosecutions for the same conduct unless:
(1) One offense is included in the other, as defined in section 556.046; or
(2) Inconsistent findings of fact are required to establish the commission of the offenses; or
(3) The offenses differ only in that one is defined to prohibit a designated kind of conduct generally and the other to prohibit a specific instance of such conduct; or
(4) The offense is defined as a continuing course of conduct and the person's course of conduct was uninterrupted, unless the law provides that specific periods of such conduct constitute separate offenses.
Failure to drive on the right hand side of the road: 1) is not a lesser-included offense of driving while intoxicated, 2) does not require inconsistent findings of fact for a finding of guilty of driving while intoxicated, 3) is not necessarily a specific instance of the prohibition against driving while intoxicated, and 4) is not a part of the larger course of conduct of driving while intoxicated. Because none of the exceptions contained in that statute are applicable here and because each crime contains an element not found in the other,3 there is no double jeopardy issue here. Thus, on its face, the trial court's action is appealable under section 547.200.2. Preliminary Matters
As noted above, the State argues on appeal that the trial court erred in not complying with Missouri's Speedy Trial Act by dismissing its case for lack of prosecution. Before addressing the underlying issues on appeal, several matters must first be stated. First, (a) the prosecutor took no action on the Failure charge between the date of the grant of a continuance (4/27/98) and January-February 2001, the date the court discovered the file; and, (b) the trial court, sua sponte, called the parties' attention to the pending charge, but at no time did the prosecutor set this case for trial, nor did the defendant under the first subsection to section 545.780, set forth infra, ever announce that he was ready for trial and file a request for a speedy trial. Second, (a) the only matters asserted in the trial court, or in this court by the respondent Honeycutt, are that the prosecutor's failure to ever file a separate, formal information amounted to a failure to file a misdemeanor information within a year resulting in the statute of limitations having run on this ticket or that res judicata bars subsequent prosecution; and (b) the respondent, Honeycutt, never presented in either the trial court or this court a complaint of prosecutorial delay or an allegation of a speedy-trial violation. Third, the trial judge ignored Honeycutt's statute of limitation and res judicata arguments, and sua sponte, without considering speedy-trial considerations, dismissed the case on what seems to be the court's inherent or common-law right to control its own docket. Should the trial court have sustained Honeycutt's motion to dismiss?
As a final preliminary matter, this court determines that the trial judge was correct in denying Honeycutt relief on his motion based on the statute of limitations and res judicata. As shown in the above chronology, the assistant prosecutor signed and dated the bottom of the Failure complaint and summons and then filed the uniform form less than two weeks after the arrest by the trooper. Signing the bottom of the ticket and timely filing the uniform complaint converted the ticket into an information. State v. Austin, 861 S.W.2d 334, 336 (Mo. App. 1993); State ex rel. Westfall v. Clifford, 617 S.W.2d 102, 103 (Mo. App. 1981). Therefore, the information was filed well within the time required for the filing of a misdemeanor. Section 556.036.2(2). See also State v. Thompson, 810 S.W.2d 85, 85-86 (Mo. App. 1991); State v. White, 838 S.W.2d 140, 142 (Mo. App. 1992). The trial court was further correct in denying Honeycutt's motion on the res judicata issue.Did the trial court have an inherent power to dismiss?
The State argues on appeal that the trial court erred in dismissing the cause against Honeycutt for failure to prosecute because such action ran afoul of Missouri's Speedy Trial Act (Act), section 545.780. That provision is set out below, and the relevant portion in subsection 2 is highlighted. It also should be emphasized that this statute contains no specific time limitations or delays which trigger the right to seek relief:
1. If defendant announces that he is ready for trial and files a request for a speedy trial, then the court shall set the case for trial as soon as reasonably possible thereafter.
2. The provisions of this section shall be enforceable by mandamus. Neither the failure to comply with this section nor the state's failure to prosecute shall be grounds for the dismissal of the indictment or information unless the court also finds that the defendant has been denied his constitutional right to a speedy trial. (Emphasis added.)
A trial court has the ability to dismiss, sua sponte, with...
To continue reading
Request your trial