Beck v. State

2005 WY 56, 110 P.3d 898, 2005 WL 1017813
CourtWyoming Supreme Court
DecidedMay 3, 2005
Docket04-84
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 2005 WY 56 (Beck v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wyoming Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Beck v. State, 2005 WY 56, 110 P.3d 898, 2005 WL 1017813 (Wyo. 2005).

Opinions

KITE, Justice.

[¶ 1] Richard Dale Beck pled guilty to one count of felony interference with a peace officer and one count of using a firearm in the course of committing a felony. He was sentenced to two consecutive terms of imprisonment, and did not appeal that judgment and sentence. Mr. Beck subsequently sought a sentence reduction to concurrent terms, which was denied. He then filed a motion to correct a clerical mistake pursuant to W.R.Cr.P. 36, requesting the same relief, which the district court also denied. We affirm.

ISSUES

[¶ 2] The issue before this Court is whether the district court properly denied Mr. Beck’s motion to correct a clerical mistake.

FACTS

[¶ 3] On July 30, 2001, Patrol Sergeant Glasgow of the Fremont County Sheriffs Office went to Mr. Beck’s residence to arrest him pursuant to an order entered in an unre[900]*900lated civil domestic relations matter. When the officer began to handcuff Mr. Beck outside of his home, Mr. Beck broke free and ran toward his front door. A struggle ensued, and the officer managed to get his foot in the door and sprayed Mr. Beck with pepper spray. Mr. Beck then ran to his bedroom, produced a revolver from under some pillows, and pointed it at the officer. The two men struggled before the officer wrestled the gun from Mr. Beck. In doing so, the officer injured his left hand. The officer then drew his own weapon and ordered Mr. Beck to the floor, handcuffed him, and escorted him to his patrol car.

[¶ 4] As a result of this altercation, Mr. Beck was charged with attempted second-degree murder pursuant to Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 6-2-104(b) and 6 — 1—301(a)(i) (LexisNexis 2003). However, he later pled guilty to one count of felony interference with a peace officer, Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 6-5-204 (Lexis-Nexis 2003), and one count of using a firearm in the course of committing a felony, Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 6-8-101(a) (LexisNexis 2003), each of which carry a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment. As part of the plea agreement, the parties stipulated that, given the facts of the case, the doctrine of merger, addressed in Bilderback v. State, 13 P.3d 249, 255 (Wyo.2000), did not apply. After accepting the plea agreement and Mr. Beck’s plea, the district court sentenced Mr. Beck to two terms of 9-10 years of imprisonment to be served consecutively.

[¶ 5] Mr. Beck did not appeal the district court’s judgment and sentence. However, in January 2003, he filed a pro se motion for sentence reduction seeking to have his sentence reduced to two concurrent terms of 3 to 5 years. Mr. Beck also filed an amended motion for sentence reduction1 in which he further claimed that his sentences violated Bilderback, and should have merged. His motions were denied and no appeal was filed.

[¶ 6] On September 26, 2003, Mr. Beck filed a motion entitled “Motion to Correct Clerical Mistake Pursuant to Wy.R.Crim.P. Rule 36[sic].” In that motion, he argued that the district court’s imposition of consecutive, rather than concurrent, sentences was a cler-ieal mistake and also was in violation of Bilderback’s merger rule. The district court denied Mr. Beck’s motion and he filed a timely notice of appeal.

DISCUSSION

[¶ 7] W.R.Cr.P. 36 applies to clerical mistakes. It provides:

Clerical mistakes in judgments, orders or other parts of the record and errors in the record arising from oversight or omission may be corrected by the court at any time and after such notice, if any, as the court orders.

[¶ 8] This rule is intended to correct clerical, not judicial, errors. Kearns v. State, 2002 WY 97, ¶ 27, 48 P.3d 1090, ¶ 27 (Wyo.2002). We must, therefore, determine whether the judge’s order constituted a clerical error or a judicial error, the latter of which does not fall within the remedial provisions of W.R.Cr.P. 36. Id. If the error was clerical, we then review the trial court’s order to ascertain whether it altered or modified the original judgment. This Court has previously distinguished the two types of errors by explaining that “ ‘all errors, mistakes, or omissions which are not the result of the exercise of the judicial function’ may be called clerical errors, while a judicial error is one that is ‘the deliberate result of judicial reasoning and determination.’ ” Id. We have further illuminated the difference between the two types of errors:

It is said in 30 Am.Jurisprudence 876: “The authority of the court in this connection does not extend beyond the power to make the journal entry speak the truth, and may be exercised only to supply omissions in the exercise of functions which are clerical merely. It is, however, often difficult to distinguish between clerical and judicial errors. The distinction between a clerical error and a judicial one is not dependent upon its source. Clerical errors may include mistakes in papers evidencing the judgment of the court made by the court itself.” In 126 A.L.R. 977, it is stated: “Clerical errors in judgments, orders, [901]*901or decrees are-not, by the majority rule, limited to mistakes of the clerk, but include also errors made by the judge where of a clerical or ministerial nature.” In 126 A.L.R. 978, it is stated: “Although an error in a judgment, order, or decree was originally made by an attorney when preparing the same for the signature of the judge or clerk, it may none the less be a ‘clerical’ error.” In Sec. 146, Freeman on Judgments, 5th Ed., the author states: “But ‘clerical’ is employed in a broad sense as contradistinguished from ‘judicial’ error and covers all errors, mistakes, or omissions which are not the result of the exercise of the judicial function. In other words, the distinction does not depend so much upon the person making the error as upon whether it was the deliberate result of judicial reasoning and determination, regardless of whether it was made by the clerk, by counsel or by the judge. Mistakes of the court are not necessarily judicial error. Thus if the judgment or some provision in it was the result of inadvertence, as where the court was laboring under a mistake or misapprehension as to the state of the record or as to some extrinsic fact, but for which a different judgment would have been rendered, the judgment may be vacated or may be corrected to correspond with what it would have been but for the inadvertence or mistake.”

Holmes v. Holmes, 66 Wyo. 317, 211 P.2d 946, 953 (Wyo.1949).

[¶ 9] The action to which Mr. Beck objects, namely the imposition of consecutive terms instead of concurrent terms, is a result of judicial, not clerical, action. In addition, Mr. Beck’s asserted “mistake” was not a mistake at all, but the product of a written and signed plea agreement, which Mr. Beck approved. Thus, Rule 36 provides Mr. Beck no relief.

[¶ 10] In his motion, Mr. Beck also attempted to raise the issue of double jeopardy contending the merger rule of Bild-erback should apply to his ease and would have resulted in one sentence instead of two. That effort must fail for three reasons. First, the issue is barred by the doctrine of res judicata which prevents the relitigation of claims raised and determined in earlier proceedings. Dolence v. State, 2005 WY 27, ¶ 6, 107 P.3d 176, ¶ 6 (Wyo.2005). Mr.

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Bluebook (online)
2005 WY 56, 110 P.3d 898, 2005 WL 1017813, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/beck-v-state-wyo-2005.