Woolsey v. State, WD
| Decision Date | 04 August 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. WD,WD |
| Citation | 738 S.W.2d 483 |
| Parties | Rick WOOLSEY, Appellant, v. STATE of Missouri, Respondent. 38943. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Melinda K. Pendergraph, Columbia, for appellant.
William L. Webster, Atty. Gen., Elizabeth A. Levin, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondent.
Before TURNAGE, P.J., and BERREY and GAITAN, JJ.
Woolsey was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole for fifty years. After the conviction was affirmed in State v. Woolsey, 664 S.W.2d 37 (Mo.App.1984), he sought relief pursuant to Rule 27.26. His motion for post-conviction relief was denied after an evidentiary hearing and he now appeals, alleging only that the trial court erred in denying his motion for post-conviction relief when counsel had failed to file an amended motion presenting any possible grounds for relief that may have been omitted from the original pro se motion.
The judgment is affirmed.
Woolsey initiated this action by filing a pro se motion which alleged lack of jurisdiction as the sole ground for vacating his conviction and sentence. Two attorneys were appointed to represent him, but in the intervening two years prior to the evidentiary hearing neither filed an amended motion on his behalf. During that period, Woolsey himself filed an amended motion claiming, as an additional ground for relief, that the jury panel selected for his trial was death qualified in that prospective jurors opposed to the death penalty were excluded. At the hearing itself, he was allowed to testify as to several other claimed grounds for relief, but all were found to be lacking in merit.
On appeal, Woolsey presents a single point of error. He alleges that he was improperly denied post-conviction relief due to his attorney's 1 failure to comply with Rule 27.26(h) which imposes upon counsel the duty to ascertain whether all grounds known as a basis for attacking the judgment and sentence were included in the motion and, if they were not, to file an amended motion presenting the additional grounds. In arguing the point, he cites, inter alia, Jones v. State, 702 S.W.2d 557 (Mo.App.1985), and McAlester v. State, 658 S.W.2d 90 (Mo.App.1983), for the proposition that the judgment should be reversed and remanded to allow him to file an amended motion with the aid of counsel.
The holdings in Jones, supra, and McAlester, supra, are inapposite to the case at bar. In each case, the pro se motion before the court stated conclusory grounds for relief which failed to include sufficient facts to warrant an evidentiary hearing. In Jones, there was no amended motion filed and in McAlester, the amended motion failed to include one of the plausible grounds raised in the pro se motion. In neither case was there any indication that factual support for the grounds could not be advanced. On the contrary, the record on appeal in each case affirmatively suggested the likelihood that such factual support was available. 2 Nevertheless, due to the absence of such supporting factual allegations, the motions were dismissed, without evidentiary hearings, on procedural as opposed to substantive grounds. Accordingly, this court concluded in each case that counsel's failure to file a properly amended motion resulted in summary dismissal depriving movant of the opportunity of having his claims addressed on the merits. Other cases cited for granting the extraordinary relief sought here similarly involved summary disposition due to procedural failures. Lee v. State, 729 S.W.2d 647 (Mo.App.1987); Young v. State, 724 S.W.2d 326 (Mo.App.1987); Parcel v. State, 637 S.W.2d 440 (Mo.App.1982).
The situation presented here is more closely analogous to Patrick v. State, 698 S.W.2d 18 (Mo.App.1985), than to Jones or McAlester. In Patrick, only the movant's pro se motion was before the trial court. It was denied without an evidentiary hearing upon the court's finding that the grounds raised either were refuted by the record or supplied no basis for relief as a matter of law. On appeal, Patrick claimed only that his motion had been improperly dismissed because his attorney had failed to comply with Rule 27.26(h). In support of his allegation, Patrick suggested an additional ground for relief that could have been raised in an amended motion. The court of appeals, after first noting that Patrick's motion had not been summarily dismissed but rather denied after adjudication on the merits, concluded that the proffered ground was specious and the...
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Luster v. State, WD
...of the grounds, fails to raise all known grounds or is incomprehensible, counsel must act. Perez, 768 S.W.2d at 228; Woolsey v. State, 738 S.W.2d 483, 485 (Mo.App.1987). See Fields v. State, 572 S.W.2d 477, 483 (Mo.1978) (en banc). Missouri courts have reversed denials of postconviction mot......
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Pippenger v. State, 17012
...is irrelevant that the amended motions did not specifically include the allegation. Movant has no cause to complain. Woolsey v. State, 738 S.W.2d 483, 485 (Mo.App.1987). It is true that movant's pro se motion and first amended motion contained allegations in addition to "equivocal plea" as ......
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State v. Perez, 54055
...the record indicates that the movant had a justiciable claim which counsel failed to present to the motion court. Woolsey v. State, 738 S.W.2d 483, 485 (Mo.App.1987). The claim stated in defendant's pro se motion clearly did not warrant relief; counsel could not have changed the outcome on ......
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State v. Keenan, s. 15905
...basis for all claims for relief which movant claimed to have. Fields v. State, 572 S.W.2d 477, 483 (Mo. banc 1978); Woolsey v. State, 738 S.W.2d 483, 485 (Mo.App.1987); Jones v. State, 702 S.W.2d 557, 559 (Mo.App.1985); McAlester v. State, 658 S.W.2d 90, 92 (Mo.App.1983). However, Rule 29.1......