State v. Mixon
| Decision Date | 19 January 1999 |
| Citation | 983 S.W.2d 661 |
| Parties | STATE of Tennessee, Appellee, v. Vaughn MIXON, Appellant. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
John Knox Walkup, Attorney General & Reporter, Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General, Elizabeth T. Ryan, Assistant Attorney General, Nashville, Tennessee, James G. Woodall, District Attorney General, Twenty-Sixth Judicial District Jackson, Tennessee, Don Allen, Assistant District Attorney General, Jackson, Tennessee, for State-Appellee.
George Morton Googe, District Public Defender 26th Judicial District, Jackson, Tennessee, for Defendant-Appellant.,
We granted this appeal to determine: (1) when a judgment becomes "final" and triggers the one-year coram nobis statute of limitations; and (2) whether a petition for writ of error coram nobis may be filed in the trial court during the pendency of an appeal as of right from a conviction.
We conclude that a judgment becomes final, and the one-year coram nobis statute of limitations begins to run, thirty days after entry of the judgment in the trial court if no post-trial motion is filed, or upon entry of an order disposing of a timely filed post-trial motion. As a result, in most instances, to be timely, a petition for writ of error coram nobis generally will be filed during the pendency of an appeal as of right.
Therefore, to promote judicial economy, when a convicted defendant files a petition for writ of error coram nobis in the trial court, he or she must simultaneously file a motion in the appellate court to stay the appeal as of right until conclusion of the coram nobis proceeding in the trial court. The motion to stay will generally be granted by the appellate court. If, as in this case, an appeal is taken from the trial court's denial of the petition for writ of error coram nobis, it will be consolidated with the appeal as of right. Because coram nobis is an extraordinary remedy to which resort should be had only if no other remedy is available, upon review, the appellate court must first address the issues raised in the defendant's appeal as of right. If none of those issues are meritorious, the appellate court must then address the issues raised in the defendant's coram nobis appeal.
In this case, a majority of the Court of Criminal Appeals 1 failed to address the issues raised by the defendant in his appeal as of right. Having considered those issues to prevent needless litigation, we conclude that the trial court erred by allowing the State to impeach the defendant's testimony with a prior sexual battery conviction, and the error is not harmless. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals, which remanded this case to the trial court for further findings on the coram nobis claim, is reversed. The defendant's convictions of attempted rape, attempted incest, and sexual battery are vacated and the case is remanded to the trial court for a new trial. 2 Because of the double jeopardy prohibition against multiple punishments for the same offense, the defendant, upon retrial, may not be convicted of both attempted rape and sexual battery.
Following a jury trial the defendant, Vaughn Mixon, was convicted of attempted rape, attempted incest, sexual battery, public intoxication, and evading arrest. The proof at trial consisted of the testimony of the victim, A.M., 3 the defendant's thirteen-year-old daughter. The victim testified that on April 16, 1994, she drove her father to visit one of his friends. Her father was unable to drive because he had consumed approximately eighteen cans of beer and was intoxicated.
After Mixon visited awhile with his friend, he and A.M. began the drive back home. The incident at issue in this appeal allegedly occurred on the return trip when the defendant instructed the victim to drive down a dirt road and stop the truck. The victim drove approximately one-half mile down the road and stopped the truck. The victim said the defendant had previously asked her if she had ever seen him naked, and once the truck was stopped, the victim said the defendant reached over, turned the key back on so the radio would play, placed his hand on her inner thigh, and commented that he "wanted a piece of pussy." The victim said she thought her father intended to rape her so she opened the truck door and jumped from the truck. As she was leaving the truck, the defendant grabbed her clothing and said he was only joking. The victim did not believe the defendant was joking, so she left the truck and ran down the dirt road and onto the main highway.
The victim ran approximately one-half mile down the main highway before she encountered another car driven by Keith Middleton, a reserve deputy with the Chester County Sheriff's Office. Middleton was driving an unmarked car and was not in uniform at the time of this incident. Middleton testified that he saw the victim running "as fast as she could go" down the side of the highway. By the time Middleton turned his vehicle around and returned to offer assistance, the defendant was driving along beside the victim. When Middleton parked his car, the victim ran toward him crying and hysterically pleading for help. A.M. asked Middleton not to leave her alone with the defendant. Although Middleton repeatedly inquired as to the problem, neither the victim nor the defendant responded to his inquiries. The defendant told Middleton to mind his own business, and eventually, Middleton returned to his car. As he drove away, Middleton observed the defendant grab the victim by the arm and throw her into the truck. The victim testified that once the defendant had forced her back into the truck he warned her not to "narc on him."
When Middleton called the Sheriff's Department to report the incident and to give a description of the vehicle, he was dispatched to the Mixon home on Carroll Road to investigate a possible rape. When Middleton arrived, two other deputies were already at the scene. The victim was also at the residence and told the deputies that the defendant had attempted to rape her. When the defendant heard these charges, he fled. Middleton and another deputy located him in a drainage ditch about 200 yards from his home. He ran again, but was apprehended at a nearby outbuilding. When apprehended, the defendant's speech was slurred and he smelled of alcohol. The defendant violently kicked the doors and windows of the patrol car and was eventually sprayed with mace.
Mixon testified in his own behalf and denied both that he had touched his daughter and that he had made sexually explicit comments to her. Mixon admitted that he was intoxicated on the day of the incident. He also admitted that he had asked the victim to stop the truck on the dirt road on the trip home, but said he had done so only because he needed to again relieve himself. When questioned about the victim's hysterical behavior, Mixon said they had been arguing about an incident which occurred in Mississippi and about the victim dating an eighteen-year-old man. Mixon said A.M. made the allegations against him because he had intended to remove her from public school and enroll her in a private Christian academy to stop the relationship.
Mixon admitted that he had fled from the deputies when the victim told them that he had attempted to rape her, but said he had done so only because he had not wanted to be arrested for a crime he had not committed. The defendant explained that he previously had been arrested when the victim had falsely accused him of physically abusing her. Mixon said he had been injured when he fled, and attributed his violent behavior in the patrol car to the pain from his injuries and to being intoxicated. In response to a question by the State on cross-examination, the defendant acknowledged that he had been previously convicted of sexual battery in Mississippi in 1986. The defendant admitted being guilty of public intoxication and evading arrest. However, the defendant strongly maintained that he was not guilty of the sexual assault crimes with which he had been charged.
Based upon this proof, the jury, on November 16, 1994, found the defendant guilty of attempted rape, attempted incest, sexual battery, public intoxication, and evading arrest. On March 20, 1995, the trial court imposed sentences for each of the convictions and denied the defendant's previously filed motion for a new trial. On April 18, 1995, the defendant filed a notice of appeal. The case was scheduled to be heard by the Court of Criminal Appeals on January 3, 1996, in Jackson.
However, on December 22, 1995, the defendant filed in the trial court a petition for writ of error coram nobis. The petition was accompanied by a sworn affidavit from the victim in which she recanted her trial testimony, and stated as follows:
1. My name is [A.M.]. I am fifteen (15) years old, and I know the difference between telling the truth and telling a lie.
2. I am the alleged victim of Vaughn Mixon, my father, whose trial was held on November 16, 1994 and is on appeal.
3. No one has promised me anything or threatened me in anyway to make this oath.
4. I testified at trial that my father said he "wanted a piece of pussy." He did say that, but he was talking about his girlfriend, not me. I knew that when he said it.
5. The only time he touched my leg that day was when he was trying to reach for the keys from the ignition. I did not think he was trying to feel my legs in a sexual way.
6. When I was running away from the truck, it was because we had been arguing about my boyfriend at the time. He was older and Daddy didn't want me going out with him. Daddy had put me in a private school to keep me away from the high school boys. I was angry and showing out by acting like I was walking home. I was not scared of him. I did not think he was trying to rape me.
7. When we got started back home and he said "don't narc on me," he was asking me not to tell mama about his girlfriend.
8. I...
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...relief arises from the “all-writs section of the Judicial Code” and making no reference to the federal constitution); State v. Mixon, 983 S.W.2d 661, 666–68 (Tenn.1999) (tracing the historical common-law and statutory origins of error coram nobis and its availability in Tennessee). Rather, ......
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