Woods v. State

• Decision Date: 17 October 1997
• Docket Number: CR-95-1993
• Citation: 709 So.2d 1340
• Parties: Harold D. WOODS v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 1340

709 So.2d 1340

Harold D. WOODS v. STATE.

CR-95-1993.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama.

Oct. 17, 1997.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 19, 1997.

William J. Cole, Birmingham, for appellant.

Bill Pryor, atty. gen., and Yvonne A.H. Saxon, asst. atty. gen., for appellee.

BROWN, Judge.

The appellant, Harold D. Woods, was convicted of attempted murder, a violation of §§ 13A-6-2 and 13A-4-2, Code of Alabama 1975. He was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment.

The evidence presented at trial tended to establish that during the early morning hours of September 15, 1992, the victim Rodney Davis was working at the Peyton Place Restaurant on Graymont Avenue in Birmingham. The restaurant was a family-owned business, and the victim was its night manager.

Starting after midnight and continuing until the restaurant closed, the victim received a number of telephone calls from the appellant, a long-time friend and college roommate of the victim's. The appellant wanted to borrow money from the victim. The victim told the appellant that he did not have any money with him, but that the appellant could come by his parents' house around 9:00 a.m. and get the money then. The appellant also inquired whether the victim would be "going out," and if so, when he would be leaving. The appellant's last telephone call to the victim was made around 3:30 a.m. The victim told the appellant that he was cleaning up the restaurant and that when he finished, he would be going directly home.

Approximately 10 minutes later, the victim saw the appellant outside the front door of the restaurant. The restaurant was closed and the doors were locked because the victim was counting the night's receipts. The victim did not unlock the door and did not let the appellant inside. He noticed that the appellant continued walking past the restaurant and around the left side of the building.

After the victim finished counting the money, he prepared to leave. He collected the cash box, his keys, a pistol, and several other items. He then walked over and unlocked the front door, and his two co-workers preceded him out the front door. Once the victim and his co-workers were out of the restaurant, the victim locked the front door and activated the alarm system.

As the victim turned to walk away from the door, he heard gunshots. He looked toward the left side of the building, from where the gunshots came, and saw the appellant and another man whom he did not recognize. As the victim looked at the appellant, he saw the appellant shoot in his direction.

The victim testified that his first thought was to open the restaurant door so that the alarm would be activated. He dropped the cash box and other items in his hand and got back inside the restaurant, but not before he had been shot. Once inside, the victim checked to see if the alarm had gone off and then made his way back toward the front door to check on the cash box's whereabouts. Before he could do so, the victim lost consciousness and fell to the floor.

Prior to the appellant's last telephone call, the victim had telephoned his father to tell him when he would be leaving. This telephone call took place around 3:00 a.m. Around 4:20 a.m., the alarm company notified the victim's father that the restaurant's alarm had gone off. His father went to the restaurant, and arrived to see the paramedics rendering emergency first aid to the victim.

The victim had been shot in the head and neck area. A bullet had lodged at the top of his spine, resulting in almost total paralysis. The victim remained hospitalized for approximately five or six months following the shooting. He remained unable to breathe or communicate without a ventilator. While still hospitalized, and later at trial, the victim identified the appellant as the person who had shot him on September 15, 1992.

The appellant's sole defense was an alibi defense. The appellant was the only defense witness. He contended that he was not the person who shot the victim, and that he was not at the restaurant that night.

I.

The appellant was originally indicted for first-degree robbery and the attempted murder of Rodney Davis. In September 1993, the appellant's first trial ended in a mistrial on both charges because the jury was deadlocked. The appellant was then tried a second time. In December 1993, the second jury acquitted the appellant of the robbery charge, but was unable to reach a verdict with regard to the attempted murder charge, and a mistrial was again declared as to that charge. The appellant's third trial was conducted in June 1996. Following the third trial, the jury convicted the appellant of attempted murder; this appeal followed.

The appellant now contends that his third trial and subsequent conviction violated his constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy. Specifically, the appellant argues that because both the robbery and attempted murder charges arose out of the same incident, under the doctrine of collateral estoppel, his acquittal on the robbery charge precluded the state from retrying him on the attempted murder charge because, he says, the only issue at the second trial was the identity of the person who had robbed and shot the victim.

The Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after an acquittal, a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction, and against multiple punishments for the same offense. Meyer v. State, 575 So.2d 1212, 1217 (Ala.Cr.App.1990). See also North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969).

However, as the state correctly points out, the general rule is that the prohibition against double jeopardy does not bar a retrial of the defendant following a mistrial. See Grimsley v. State, 678 So.2d 1197, 1208 (Ala.Cr.App.1996); Ex parte Ziglar, 675 So.2d 543, 544-46 (Ala.Cr.App.1996); McKinney v. State, 567 So.2d 870, 874 (Ala.Cr.App.), cert. denied, 567 So.2d 877 (Ala.1990).

There is, however, a limited exception to this general rule when an appellant's double jeopardy assertion involves the corollary doctrine of collateral estoppel.

"[T]he Double Jeopardy Clause incorporates the doctrine of collateral estoppel, which may bar a retrial even if the crimes are not the same. Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970); Annot., 9 A.L.R.3d 203 (1966). Collateral estoppel 'means simply that when an issue of ultimate fact has once been determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue cannot again be litigated between the same parties in any further lawsuit.' Ashe, 397 U.S. at 443, 90 S.Ct. at 1194; Prince v. State 431 So.2d 565, 568 (Ala.Cr.App.1982), cert. denied, 431 So.2d 568 (Ala.1983). Thus, even when different offenses are charged, and the Double Jeopardy Clause therefore would not normally bar a second prosecution, collateral estoppel may bar the second trial when a fact previously found in the defendant's favor is necessary to the second conviction. Ashe, 397 U.S. at 446, 90 S.Ct. at 1195. Collateral estoppel may also bar the reintroduction of evidence used against a defendant in a prior prosecution when the State is attempting to use the evidence to prove a fact previously found against it. United States v. Johnson, 697 F.2d 735, 740 (6th Cir.1983); United States v. Head, 697 F.2d 1200, 1207-08 (4th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 462 U.S. 1132, 103 S.Ct. 3113, 77 L.Ed.2d 1367 (1983). '(T)he rule is well settled that the doctrine of collateral estoppel, as applied in criminal prosecutions, precludes the relitigation of issues determined by a former verdict and judgment, that is those issues actually decided and those necessarily involved in the result.' 9 A.L.R.3d § 7(a). 'Ashe, however, does not prohibit the admission of the same evidence at the second trial, but only prohibits the relitigation of the issues conclusively decided in defendant's favor in the first prosecution.' United States v. Woodward, 482 F.Supp. 953, 956 (W.D.Pa.1979). 'Evidence introduced in the trial leading to acquittal can be reintroduced in a second trial provided the court finds the fact "which defendant sought to bar was not previously determined in defendant's favor by the acquittal verdict." ' United States v. Hill, 550 F.Supp. 983, 987 (E.D.Pa.1982). See also Oliphant v. Koehler, 594 F.2d 547 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 877, 100 S.Ct. 162, 62 L.Ed.2d 105 (1979).

"When a previous judgment of acquittal was based upon a general verdict, the rule of collateral estoppel 'requires a court to "examine the record of a prior proceeding, taking into account the pleadings, evidence, charge, and other relevant matter, and conclude whether a rational jury would have grounded its verdict upon an issue other than that which the defendant seeks to foreclose from consideration." ' Ashe, 397 U.S. at 444, 90 S.Ct. at 1194. 'When a claim is made that collateral estoppel prevents certain evidence from being admitted at trial, a court must determine what the first judgment decided and then must analyze how that determination bears on the second case. See United States v. Mespoulede, 597 F.2d 329 (2d Cir.1979).' Sabin v. Israel, 554 F.Supp. 390, 391 (E.D.Wis.1983). See also United States v. Webbe, 558 F.Supp. 55, 56 (D.Nev.1983). 'The burden, however, is on the defendant in the second case to establish that the issue he seeks to foreclose from litigation in the present prosecution was necessarily decided in his favor by the prior verdict.' United States v. Cala, 521 F.2d 605, 608 (2d. Cir.1975)."

Morris v. State, 465 So.2d 1173, 1176 (Ala.Cr.App.1984), rev'd on other grounds, 465 So.2d 1180 (Ala.1985). See also Project: Twenty-Sixth Annual Review of Criminal Procedure, 85 Geo.L.J. 775, 1195-99 (1997).

The appellant argues that his conviction for the attempted murder of Rodney Davis is due to be reversed and a judgment of acquittal rendered based upon the authority of Prince v. State, 431 So.2d 565 (Ala.Cr.App.1982)...