Bumpus v. State

1996 OK CR 52, 925 P.2d 1208, 67 O.B.A.J. 3299, 1996 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 53, 1996 WL 626983
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedOctober 22, 1996
Docket0-95-1145
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 1996 OK CR 52 (Bumpus v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bumpus v. State, 1996 OK CR 52, 925 P.2d 1208, 67 O.B.A.J. 3299, 1996 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 53, 1996 WL 626983 (Okla. Ct. App. 1996).

Opinions

[1209]*1209 ORDER DISMISSING APPEAL, VACATING ORDER OF SUSPENSION, AND REMANDING CASE FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS

CHAPEL, Vice Presiding Judge.

Appellant, Tracy Bumpus, filed an appeal with this Court from a September 28, 1995 order of the District Court of Muskogee County in Case No. CRF-93-588. The order appealed revoked Appellant’s five-year suspended sentence which Appellant received on August 31, 1993, for Knowingly Concealing or Withholding Stolen Property. Pursuant to 22 O.S.Supp.1995, Ch. 18, App., Section XI, Rules of the Court of Criminal Appeals, this matter was assigned to this Court’s accelerated docket.

On March 15, 1996, simultaneously with the 'filing of Appellant’s “Application for Accelerated Docket — Fast Track,” attorney Danny G. Lohmann of the court-appointed Oklahoma Indigent Defense System, the assigned defense counsel for Appellant, filed with this Court a “Motion to Determine Validity of Appeal and Brief in Support.” Because Appellant has at least two prior felony convictions, the Motion requested this Court to issue an order determining “whether or not Appellant’s appeal from this revocation of his suspended sentence is valid and/or whether it should proceed or be dismissed.”1 Motion to Determine Validity of Appeal and Brief in Support at 3. Appellate counsel based his request primarily upon our holding in Davis v. State, 845 P.2d 194, 197 (Okl.Cr.1993). The Davis decision construed a provision contained in what was then 22 O.S.Supp. 1988, § 991a(B). This same provision now appears at 22 O.S.Supp.1995 § 991a(C). The referenced provision makes suspended sentences impermissible for any individual “being sentenced upon their third or subsequent to their third conviction of a felony.” In Davis we stated that by reason of this statutory provision “a judge of the District Court is without authority to suspend a sentence in whole or in part if a defendant has previously been convicted of two or more felonies.” Ap-pellee’s response to appellate defense counsel’s Motion essentially confesses the Motion concluding that the suspended portion of Appellant’s suspended sentence is void under Davis; however, Appellee suggests that appellate defense counsel’s Motion be treated as a Court of Criminal Appeal’s Rule 3.6(B) request to withdraw by defense counsel as attorney of record for Appellant on the grounds that there are no serious issues existing in Appellant’s appeal. Response to Appellant’s Motion to Determine Validity of Appeal and Brief in Support at 2-3.

On May 22, 1996, the Court issued an order reserving final ruling upon the Motion and Response until after oral argument and ordered the case to proceed to oral argument as scheduled. On May 30, 1996, oral argument was held and the Court took all matters under advisement.

Having fully considered appellate defense counsel’s Motion and the State’s Response and the requests made within each, the Court FINDS that appellate defense counsel’s Motion and the State’s Response should each be sustained in part and overruled in part as hereinafter set forth. It is undisputed that Appellant at the time of his sentencing had been convicted within Oklahoma of at least two or more separate and distinct felonies. Under such circumstances and under the authority of our decision in Davis, we are compelled to declare the suspended portion of Appellant’s sentence voidable at its inception. It now must be vacated and set aside.

By voidable we mean that the order suspending Appellant’s sentence was, from the moment it was entered, subject to being set aside upon proof that the District Court was without statutory authority to enter an order of suspension due to Appellant’s prior convictions. Had Appellant’s prior convictions been sufficiently evident from the record supporting Appellant’s conviction at the time [1210]*1210the suspension order was entered, then we would have had to conclude that the District Court’s order of suspension was void on its face. Cf. In re Brewster, 284 P.2d 755, 757 (Okl.Cr.1955) (where judgment and sentence disclosed “that the trial court had jurisdiction of the person of the defendant, jurisdiction of the subject matter, and authority under the law to pronounce judgment and sentence imposed,” judgment and sentence could not be said to be “void on its face”).

As will become more clear below, whether a suspended sentence is “void” or “voidable” has important ramifications for those defendants who might receive or who may now be serving an illegal suspended sentence. For this reason we feel it necessary to clarify our holding in Davis. There the defendant, pursuant to a plea agreement, was given a suspended sentence before it was learned by the district court or the District Attorney that the defendant had prior felony convictions. Once the district court learned of the defendant’s history, it illegally vacated both the sentence and the judgment upon which the sentence was based and placed defendant on trial. Since defendant Davis refused to withdraw his guilty plea or otherwise consent to retrial, the district court should only have vacated defendant’s suspension order. The district court should then have ordered execution of the term of years to which the district court had originally sentenced defendant. Cf. Robertson v. State, 888 P.2d 1023 (Okl.Cr.1995) (judgment and sentence could properly be vacated where defendant voluntarily withdrew plea).

Our declaring of the Davis suspension order “void” was occasioned by the undisputed fact that defendant Davis had at least two qualifying prior felony convictions that deprived the district court of its statutory authority to render a suspended sentence. However, prior to establishment of this fact, the district court’s suspension order was only “voidable” as there was nothing in the record at the time of the district court’s suspension order that demonstrated that the district court was without statutory authority to enter defendant Davis’ suspended sentence. As long as the supporting record does not reflect the district court’s lack of authority, the district court order cannot be declared “void.” Such an order is instead only “voidable.” For this reason, a questioned order is only subject to being vacated and set aside (i.e. made “void”) upon the introduction of evidence extrinsic to the existing record which demonstrates that the district court was without statutory authority to enter the order.

In the case at hand, there was no evidence of Appellant’s prior convictions until Appellant admitted the same at his revocation hearing some two years after entry of the order suspending his five-year sentence. Although the State in Appellant’s case indeed filed a “Supplemental Information” (more commonly known as a “Page Two”) which alleged three separate prior felony convictions, this portion of the Information was dismissed as part of Appellant’s plea agreement. Accordingly, there was no admission by Appellant at or prior to his guilty plea as to the truth of the allegations of prior convictions as set forth in the State’s “Supplemental Information.” Absent an admission or any other evidence of prior convictions in the record as it existed at the time of Appellant’s plea, there was not and could not have been any judicial determination of the existence of prior convictions that would make the district court’s suspension order void upon its face.

The filing of a Page Two is different than the filing of a defendant’s actual judgment and sentence.

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Bumpus v. State
1996 OK CR 52 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1996)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1996 OK CR 52, 925 P.2d 1208, 67 O.B.A.J. 3299, 1996 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 53, 1996 WL 626983, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bumpus-v-state-oklacrimapp-1996.