State v. Mohler

• Decision Date: 06 May 1998
• Docket Number: No. 87S01-9709-PC-497,87S01-9709-PC-497
• Citation: 694 N.E.2d 1129
• Parties: STATE of Indiana, Appellant (Plaintiff below), v. Guy A. MOHLER, Appellee (Defendant below).
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 1129

694 N.E.2d 1129

STATE of Indiana, Appellant (Plaintiff below), v. Guy A. MOHLER, Appellee (Defendant below).

No. 87S01-9709-PC-497.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

May 6, 1998.

Jeffrey A. Modisett, Attorney General, Anthony Scott Chinn, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, for Appellant.

John Burley Scales, Boonville, for Appellee.

ON PETITION TO TRANSFER

SULLIVAN, Justice.

In Bryant v. State, 660 N.E.2d 290 (Ind.1995), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 293, 136 L.Ed.2d 213 (1996), we held that because Indiana's Controlled Substance Excise Tax is a punishment, the Double Jeopardy Clause bars a criminal prosecution for an underlying drug offense after that tax has been assessed. However, this new rule is not retroactive under Daniels v. State, 561 N.E.2d 487 (Ind.1990), and so does not entitle Guy A. Mohler to post-conviction relief.

Background

In December, 1993, the State charged Guy A. Mohler ("Mohler") with possession of ¹ and dealing in ² more than thirty grams of marijuana, both class D felonies. Seven months earlier, in May, 1993, Mohler had received from the Indiana Department of Revenue a Record of Jeopardy Finding and Jeopardy Assessment Notice and Demand for payment of a Controlled Substance Excise Tax ("CSET") ³ in the amount of $48,360.00. ⁴ The CSET and the criminal charges related to the same marijuana. Mohler pled guilty to both charges on August 18, 1995, and the trial court sentenced him on September 29, 1995.

Mohler did not appeal his convictions or sentence. In January, 1996, Mohler filed a petition for post-conviction relief based on this Court's holding in Bryant v. State, 660 N.E.2d 290 (because CSET is punishment, the Double Jeopardy Clause bars drug prosecution after tax has been assessed), which the trial court granted. The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's grant of post-conviction relief, and held that the rule announced in Bryant applied retroactively to Mohler and that the post-conviction court properly vacated Mohler's convictions for possessing and dealing in marijuana. State v. Mohler, 679 N.E.2d 170, 173 (Ind.Ct.App.1997).

Upon the State's petition, this Court granted transfer on September 12, 1997. Ind.Appellate Rule 11(B)(3).

Discussion

The State argues that under the principles of nonretroactivity this Court established in Daniels, our decision in Bryant "announced a new rule [of criminal procedure] that may not be applied retroactively to convictions and sentences that became final before Bryant was decided[.]" Br. of Appellant in Support of Petition to Transfer, p. 1.

I

In Bryant, we held that the CSET constitutes a criminal punishment due to its punitive nature, and its assessment triggers double jeopardy protections. 660 N.E.2d at 295. Double jeopardy protects defendants against a second prosecution for the same offense following either an acquittal or a conviction, and against multiple punishments for the same offense. U.S. Const. amend. V; Ind. Const. art. I, § 14; Bryant, 660 N.E.2d at 295 (citing North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969)).

The CSET is imposed upon the delivery, possession, or manufacture of a controlled substance. Ind.Code § 6-7-3-5 (Supp.1992). Although the CSET is denominated a civil penalty, we held that it was a punishment that creates a risk of determination of guilt upon which jeopardy attaches. Bryant, 660 N.E.2d at 297, 299 (deterrent purpose, high rate, and punitive nature make CSET more akin to criminal punishment). Therefore, we concluded that assessing a defendant with a CSET and subsequently prosecuting him or her with the underlying crime (relating to delivery, possession or manufacture of a controlled substance) violated double jeopardy. Id. at 300.

II

The issue before this Court today is whether the Court of Appeals erred in applying retroactively the holding of Bryant to Mohler and vacating his convictions for possessing and dealing in marijuana. The State invokes Daniels v. State, 561 N.E.2d 487, a case in which we enunciated the circumstances under which we would apply retroactively new rules of criminal procedure. The State argues under Daniels that the rule announced in Bryant does not apply retroactively to defendants whose convictions became final before the rule was announced.

A

In Daniels, this Court adopted as our state retroactivity rule the same retroactivity rule articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989), and refined in Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989). Daniels, 561 N.E.2d at 489 ("we elect to follow the approach of Teague and Penry in addressing the retroactivity of new law to cases on review pursuant to petitions for post-conviction relief under Indiana procedure"). Teague established the retroactivity standard for federal courts reviewing habeas corpus petitions for relief from state judgments. State courts hearing claims for collateral review (such as Mohler's) are free to set their own retroactivity rules independent of Teague. See generally Mary C. Hutton, Retroactivity in the States: The Impact of Teague v. Lane on State Post-conviction Remedies, 44 Ala.L.Rev. 421 (1993) (compiling state approaches to retroactivity analysis following Teague ). Indiana is one of a group of states that has acknowledged its independence in this regard but nevertheless has followed Teague; other states have chosen to reject Teague. See Benjamin P. Cooper, Truth in Sentencing: The Prospective and Retroactive Application of Simmons v. South Carolina, 63 U.Chi.L.Rev. 1573, 1388 n. 69 (1996) (collecting cases). In support of our decision to follow the Teague retroactivity analysis, we observed that the purposes for which Indiana affords the remedy of post-conviction relief are substantially similar to those for which the federal writ of habeas corpus is made available. Daniels, 561 N.E.2d at 489.

B

"In general, ... a case announces a new rule when it breaks new ground or imposes a new obligation on the ... [g]overnment ... [or] if the result was not dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant's conviction became final," Teague, 489 U.S. at 301, 109 S.Ct. at 1070 (citations omitted and emphasis in original), or if the result is "susceptible to debate among reasonable minds," Butler v. McKellar, 494 U.S. 407, 415, 110 S.Ct. 1212, 1217, 108 L.Ed.2d 347 (1990). A conviction and sentence become final "for purposes of retroactivity analysis when the availability of direct appeal to the state courts has been exhausted and the time for filing a petition for a writ of certiorari has elapsed or a timely filed petition has been finally denied." Caspari v. Bohlen, 510 U.S. 383, 390, 114 S.Ct. 948, 953, 127 L.Ed.2d 236 (1994).

In Teague, a plurality of the Supreme Court held that new rules of law do not apply retroactively to cases on collateral review unless they fall within one of two very narrow exceptions. 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334. The first exception permits retroactive application of new rules that place " 'certain kinds of primary, private individual conduct beyond the power of the criminal law-making authority to proscribe.' " Teague, 489 U.S. at 307, 109 S.Ct. at 1073 (quoting Mackey v. United States, 401 U.S. 667, 692, 91 S.Ct. 1171, 1179-80, 28 L.Ed.2d 388 (1971) (Harlan, J., concurring in judgments in part and dissenting in part)). The Supreme Court has extended this exception to include "substantive categorical guarantees accorded by the Constitution," such as a rule prohibiting a particular punishment for a class of defendants due to their status or offense. Penry, 492 U.S. at 329-30, 109 S.Ct. at 2952-53.

The second exception provides for retroactive application of new rules that "require[ ] the observance of those procedures that ... are implicit in the concept of ordered liberty." Teague, 489 U.S. at 307, 109 S.Ct. at 1073 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). The Supreme Court limited this exception to "watershed rules of criminal procedure" that implicate the fundamental fairness of criminal proceedings and are "central to an accurate determination of innocence or guilt." Id. at 311, 313, 109 S.Ct. at 1076, 1077.

The principle Daniels extracted from Teague, therefore, is that new rules of criminal procedure do not apply retroactively to cases that became final before the new rule was announced, unless the new rule (a)(1) places certain "primary, private individual conduct beyond the power of the criminal law-making authority to proscribe;" or (a)(2) prohibits a particular punishment for a class of defendants based on their status or offense; or (b) is a "watershed rule[ ] of criminal procedure ... central to an accurate determination of innocence or guilt." Penry, 492 U.S. at 330, 109 S.Ct. at 2952-53; Teague, 489 U.S. at 307, 311, 313, 109 S.Ct. at 1073-74, 1075-76, 1076-77. Accordingly, to ascertain whether Mohler may benefit from the rule announced in Bryant, we must apply the three prong test derived from Teague. First, we must determine when Mohler's convictions and sentence became final. Caspari, 510 U.S. at 390, 114 S.Ct. at 953-54. Next, we must determine whether Bryant announced a new rule of criminal procedure or whether its result was dictated by precedent existing at the time Mohler's convictions and sentence became final. Id. Finally, if we determine that Bryant announced a new rule of criminal procedure, we must decide if the new rule falls within one of the two narrow exceptions to the general rule of nonretroactivity. Id.

C

The trial court entered final judgment on Mohler's convictions and sentence on September 29, 1995. Mohler did not file a praecipe for appeal within the thirty day period allotted under Ind.Appellate Rule 2(A). This Court issued its opinion in Bryant on December 27, 1995. Therefore, Mohler's convictions and sentence became final before Bryant was decided. See Caspari, ...