Wiggins v. Lemley

• Decision Date: 15 July 1986
• Docket Number: 42910,Nos. 42909,s. 42909
• Citation: 256 Ga. 152,345 S.E.2d 584
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court
• Parties: WIGGINS v. LEMLEY, et al.

Page 584

345 S.E.2d 584

256 Ga. 152

WIGGINS v. LEMLEY, et al.

Nos. 42909, 42910.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

July 15, 1986.

James L. Wiggins, Dist. Atty., Eastman, pro se.

Michael J. Bowers, Atty. Gen., Dennis R. Dunn, Asst. Atty. Gen., Wayne E. Ingram, Atlanta, for Melvin Lemley, et al.

Arthur K. Bolton, amicus curiae.

SMITH, Justice.

Appellant James Wiggins, District Attorney Pro Tem of the Houston Judicial Circuit, sought to intervene in appellee Melvin Lemley's action for habeas corpus in order to request the habeas court to set aside its order granting Lemley's petition for habeas corpus. Lemley's co-appellee, Attorney General Bowers, filed no appeal from the habeas court's order and, along with Lemley, opposed Wiggins' motion to intervene and his motion to set aside the habeas court's original ruling. Wiggins appeals the habeas court's denial of his motion to intervene. We affirm.

A Houston County jury convicted Lemley for the murder of a police officer. We affirmed the conviction in Lemley v. State, 245 Ga. 350, 264 S.E.2d 881 (1980). There, we denied Lemley's claim that "[t]he trial court erred in failing to restrict the number of law enforcement officers in the courtroom at the time of the court's recharge to the jury over the defendant's objection that their presence was a direct form of intimidation of the jury." Id. at 353, 264 S.E.2d 881.

On December 29, 1982, Lemley filed a petition for habeas corpus that alleged, among other things, that the transcript for the original trial did not sufficiently document the intimidating circumstances at the recharge, and that the Supreme Court "could not adequately and justifiably decide" the issue of the trial court's actions in light of the intimidation. On August 4, 1983, Lemley had a subpoena served upon an employee of the Georgia Crime Information Center seeking teletype communication from the Houston County Sheriff's Department to other law enforcement agencies on the night before the recharge to the jury in the Lemley trial. The habeas court, in an in camera inspection of documents produced pursuant to the subpoena, discovered a request sent out by the Houston County Sheriff to law enforcement agencies surrounding Houston County for officers to "please be in full uniform at the court house in Perry at 9:00 A.M. 3-30-79.... Dep. Tanner gave his life in the line of duty and we feel this request is not [too] great to ask."

The habeas court considered this message to constitute newly discovered evidence. ¹ The court ruled that this evidence established an intentional denial, on behalf of the Sheriff, of Lemley's right to an impartial jury. The court accordingly granted Lemley's petition for habeas corpus.

Appellee Bowers, representing Lansome Newsome, the warden of Reidsville Prison, chose to not appeal the habeas court's ruling. When the original trial court learned of the habeas court's ruling and Bowers' decision to not appeal, it appointed Wiggins as District Attorney Pro Tem to retry Lemley, since Lemley's attorney at the original trial had since become the District Attorney for the Houston Judicial Circuit. When Wiggins, instead, attempted to intervene as representative of the State in the habeas action to have the habeas court's ruling set aside, Bowers and Lemley opposed his motion.

The trial court found Wiggins unauthorized to intervene in the case as the state's representative. We granted Wiggins' application for an appeal to consider his authority to intervene on the state's behalf and the propriety of his intervention in this case if the authority is found.

1. The threshold issue in this case concerns a district attorney's authority to assert the state's interest in his official capacity in a habeas action originating outside of his own judicial circuit.

While OCGA § 15-18-6 and Art. VI, Sec. VIII, Par. I of the 1983 Constitution of Georgia set out the district attorney's duties, no extant statute or constitutional provision purports to deal with the scope of a district attorney's authority. In Boykin v. Martocello, 194 Ga. 867, 22 S.E.2d 790 (1942), however, this court found OCGA § 15-18-6(5) to preclude a district attorney (then known as a solicitor-general) from asserting the interest of the state in a civil action where the legislature had provided for another party to assert that interest. We find Boykin well-reasoned and applicable.

Boykin, the solicitor-general for the Atlanta Judicial Circuit, filed a petition to have a certain divorce set aside as a fraud upon the court. The trial court ruled that the solicitor-general lacked the authority to bring such a suit. This court affirmed.

The solicitor-general cited OCGA § 15-18-6(5) as a source of authority for his attempt to set the divorce aside. Subsection (5) creates the duty on behalf of a district attorney to "prosecute or defend any civil action in the prosecution of which the state is interested, unless specifically otherwise provided for." The court first noted that the state "has an interest in all divorce cases." Boykin, supra, at 868, 22 S.E.2d 790. The court then pointed out the fact that the legislature had specifically otherwise provided for representation of the state's interest in divorce actions by directing the trial judge to ensure by his own inquiry that the grounds for divorce were sustained by proof, or to appoint the solicitor-general or another attorney to make such a determination. The court then held that the specific provision actually precluded the solicitor-general from asserting the state's interest in the case under his own initiative.

In this case, the district attorney also claims the authority to assert the state's interest by injecting himself into a non-criminal action. ² The state certainly has an interest in a habeas action equal to its interest in a divorce action. ³ The...