Stephens v. Zant

• Decision Date: 26 November 1980
• Docket Number: No. 79-2407,79-2407
• Citation: 631 F.2d 397
• Parties: Alpha Otis O'Daniel STEPHENS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Walter ZANT, Superintendent, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 397

631 F.2d 397

Alpha Otis O'Daniel STEPHENS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Walter ZANT, Superintendent, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 79-2407.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Nov. 26, 1980.

James C. Bonner, Jr., Athens, Ga., Richard Erwin Shapiro, New Orleans, La., Hugh Lawson, Hawkinsville, Ga., for petitioner-appellant.

John C. Boger, Joel Berger, Jack Greenberg, James M. Nabritt, III, Deborah Fins, New York City, Anthony G. Amsterdam, Stanford, Cal., for amicus curiae NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.

Arthur K. Bolton, Atty. Gen., Harrison Kohler, Robert S. Stubbs, II, Don A. Langham, John C. Walden, Asst. Attys. Gen., Atlanta, Ga., for respondent-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.

Before INGRAHAM, RONEY, and THOMAS A. CLARK, Circuit Judges.

RONEY, Circuit Judge.

Petitioner, convicted of murder and sentenced to death by the State of Georgia, appeals from a denial of a writ of habeas corpus. Petitioner contends his conviction violates the Double Jeopardy Clause and his sentence is invalid under the Eighth Amendment because closing arguments were not transcribed, the jury was not properly instructed that it could recommend a life sentence if it found aggravating circumstances, and the jury was permitted to consider an unconstitutional aggravating circumstance. Although we reject his other contentions, we agree that because the jury considered an unconstitutional aggravating circumstance, petitioner's death sentence cannot stand.

In August of 1974, petitioner escaped from jail where he was serving sentences for earlier burglary convictions. He committed a number of crimes in Twiggs County, Georgia. While petitioner and an accomplice were burglarizing a house, Roy Asbell drove up in his car. Petitioner forced Asbell at gunpoint from the car, hit him several times in the face and took a large sum of money from him. Petitioner then forced Asbell back into the car and drove him approximately three miles, across the county line into Bleckley County. There, petitioner killed Asbell by shooting him twice in the head at close range.

Shortly thereafter petitioner was apprehended and was indicted by the Twiggs County grand jury for motor vehicle theft, armed robbery and kidnapping with bodily injury. Petitioner pleaded guilty in Twiggs Superior Court and was sentenced to ten years for motor vehicle theft and to life sentences for armed robbery and kidnapping.

Afterwards petitioner was indicted in Bleckley County for the murder of Roy Asbell, found guilty and sentenced to death. His conviction and sentence were affirmed on direct appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court. Stephens v. State, 237 Ga. 259, 227 S.E.2d 261, cert. denied, 429 U.S. 986, 97 S.Ct. 508, 50 L.Ed.2d 598 (1976). His state petition for a writ of habeas corpus was denied. Stephens v. Hopper, 241 Ga. 596, 247 S.E.2d 92, cert. denied, 439 U.S. 991, 99 S.Ct. 593, 58 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978). Petitioner then sought a writ of habeas corpus in federal court, alleging the same constitutional flaws as were raised in state court. The district court denied relief. Petitioner appeals, his execution having been stayed pending appeal.

Petitioner asserts four errors in his conviction and sentence: (1) jeopardy for the murder charge attached when he pleaded guilty to the kidnapping charge and therefore his subsequent murder trial was constitutionally barred; (2) the court failed to transcribe closing arguments and voir dire ; (3) the instruction to the jury did not adequately

charge that they could still impose life imprisonment even if they found aggravating circumstances that would justify the death sentence; and (4) when one of the three aggravating circumstances found by the jury was later declared unconstitutionally vague, the sentence should not have been affirmed on the basis of the other two.

I. DOUBLE JEOPARDY

The Twiggs County indictment for kidnapping recited that he killed the kidnap victim. The third count reads as follows:

COUNT III

And the aforesaid Grand Jurors ... charge and accuse Alpha Otis O'Daniel Stephens ... with the offense of KIDNAPPING for that the said Alpha Otis O'Daniel Stephens ... in the county aforesaid ... did unlawfully and with force and arms abduct and steal away Roy Asbell, a person, without lawful authority, and held Roy Asbell against his will and did physically abuse and did inflict and cause bodily injury to the body of Roy Asbell by beating, hitting and kicking Roy Asbell and did threaten to kill Roy Asbell and then did kill Roy Asbell by shooting Roy Asbell, contrary to the laws of said State ....

Petitioner argues that by stating that in the course of the kidnapping he killed Asbell, the State unwittingly accused him of the crime of murder because the indictment alleged all the elements of murder. When he pled guilty under Count III of the Twiggs indictment, he admitted every fact averred in the indictment. At that point, his argument continues, he ran the risk-i.e., was placed in jeopardy-of a conviction of murder under a felony-murder theory. Since under Georgia law felony murder and malice murder are different ways in which one offense may be committed, Leutner v. State, 235 Ga. 77, 218 S.E.2d 820 (1975), he argues the State was barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause from prosecuting him for malice murder in Bleckley County.

The Supreme Court of Georgia responded to petitioner's argument by holding that malice murder and kidnapping are not the same in law or in fact and thus are not the same offense under state law. It also determined that the state legislature intended, under the test in Ga. Code Ann. §§ 26-505 to 507, to permit multiple prosecutions and punishments in a case such as this. Stephens v. Hopper, 241 Ga. at 598-600, 247 S.E.2d at 94-95. Cf. Whalen v. United States, 445 U.S. 684, 100 S.Ct. 1432, 63 L.Ed.2d 715 (1980) (holding that the Double Jeopardy Clause prohibits courts from imposing greater penalties than the legislature intended).

While this is the definitive interpretation of Georgia law and binding upon this Court, Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 691, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 1885, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975), the holding does not adequately respond to petitioner's argument. Petitioner's contention is not that kidnapping and malice murder are the "same offense." Rather, he asserts that felony murder was charged in the indictment, that by pleading guilty he was placed in jeopardy of conviction for that crime and therefore the state is barred from any further attempt to prosecute him for murder.

Petitioner's contention that he was placed in jeopardy of a conviction for murder in Twiggs County is erroneous, because there was no jurisdiction in that county to try him for the homicide. The rule is absolute that a person is not put in jeopardy unless the court in which he was tried the first time had jurisdiction to try him for the charge the person now seeks to avoid. The Supreme Court has twice spoken to the point.

We assume as indisputable, on principle and authority, that before a person can be said to have been put in jeopardy of life or limb the court in which he was acquitted or convicted must have had jurisdiction to try him for the offense charged.

Grafton v. United States, 206 U.S. 333, 345, 27 S.Ct. 749, 751, 51 L.Ed. 1084 (1907).

An acquittal before a court having no jurisdiction is, of course, like all the proceedings in the case, absolutely void, and therefore no bar to subsequent indictment and trial in a court which has jurisdiction of the offense.

United States v. Ball, 163 U.S. 662, 669, 16 S.Ct. 1192, 1194, 41 L.Ed. 300 (1896).

The Georgia Constitution requires that, unless an impartial jury cannot be obtained, "all criminal cases shall be tried in the county where the crime was committed." Ga. Const. Art. VI, § XIV, P VI (Ga. Code Ann. § 2-4306). The Supreme Court of Georgia specifically held in this case that the Twiggs County court did not have jurisdiction to try the murder offense. Stephens v. Hopper, 241 Ga. at 599, 247 S.E.2d at 95. The Fifth Circuit held in Tennon v. Ricketts, 574 F.2d 1243, 1245 (1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1091, 99 S.Ct. 874, 59 L.Ed.2d 57 (1979), that "it is for the Georgia Supreme Court, not this Court, to expound the decisional rules of that, jurisdiction." Accord, Hortonville Joint School District No. 1 v. Hortonville Education Assn., 426 U.S. 482, 488, 96 S.Ct. 2308, 2312, 49 L.Ed.2d 1 (1976); Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 691, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 1885, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438, 441-42, 92 S.Ct. 1029, 1032, 31 L.Ed.2d 349 (1972) (all holding that the highest state court is the final authority on questions of state law and federal courts are bound to accept its interpretation of state law).

The question of the jurisdiction of a state trial court in a state criminal prosecution is clearly a question of state law, which binds this Court. Since the Twiggs Superior Court had no jurisdiction to hear the murder offense, petitioner was not placed in jeopardy of a murder conviction, under either a malice murder or felony murder theory, in the Twiggs County proceedings.

Petitioner was, however, placed in jeopardy for the offense of kidnapping with bodily injury. The Double Jeopardy Clause bars a subsequent prosecution for any offense deemed the "same offense" under the test in Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 304, 52 S.Ct. 180, 182, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932).

(W)here the same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct statutory provisions, the test to be applied to determine whether there are two offenses or only one, is whether each provision requires proof of a fact which the other does not.

The Supreme Court held in Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 97 S.Ct. 2221, 53 L.Ed.2d 187 (1977), that a lesser or greater included offense is the "same offense" for double jeopardy purposes. It thus becomes necessary to determine whether peti...