Denton v. State

496 N.E.2d 576, 1986 Ind. LEXIS 1252
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedAugust 22, 1986
Docket1185S455
StatusPublished
Cited by52 cases

This text of 496 N.E.2d 576 (Denton v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Denton v. State, 496 N.E.2d 576, 1986 Ind. LEXIS 1252 (Ind. 1986).

Opinion

GIVAN, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from a retrial on the issue of appellant's habitual offender status. In 1981, a jury found appellant guilty of Rape, a Class B felony, and also found him to be an habitual offender. The court imposed a forty-five (45) year sentence. On direct appeal this Court affirmed the conviction. Denton v. State (1988), Ind., 455 N.E.2d 905.

On March 15, 1984, appellant filed a Motion to Correct Erroneous Sentence in which he alleged that one of the prior felony convictions shown in the habitual offender proceeding had been vacated. Attached was the judgment of the Hancock Circuit Court entered October 12, 1988, granting appellant's Petition for Post-Conviction Relief and vacating his 1975 convietion for rape and commission of a crime of violence while armed. On August 138, the trial court granted appellant's motion and set aside the habitual offender finding.

On September 4, the State filed a motion for retrial as to the habitual offender status. In December, the court granted the State's oral motion to file an amended habitual offender count. On May 2, 1985, a jury found that appellant had accumulated two or more prior unrelated felony convie-tions and that he was an habitual offender. The court then resentenced appellant, adding thirty (80) years to the fifteen (15) years previously imposed on the Class B felony conviction.

Appellant contends the trial court erred in overruling both his motion to dismiss and his pro se motion to quash the amended habitual offender charge. The motions were premised on his assertion that the vacation of the first habitual offender determination was in effect a ruling that the jury's finding was not supported by sufficient evidence and, as a result, the State was barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause of the United States Constitution and by Ind.Code § 35-41-4-8 from retrying him as an habitual offender.

Appellant correctly recognizes that this Court has held the doctrines of double jeop *579 ardy and collateral estoppel to be inapplicable to habitual offender proceedings. Mers v. State (1986), Ind., 496 N.E.2d 75; Durham v. State (1984), Ind., 464 N.E.2d 321 (DeBruler, J., and Prentice, J., dissenting); Baker v. State (1981), Ind., 425 N.E.2d 98 (DeBruler, J., and Prentice, J., dissenting). As stated by Justice Hunter, "[blecause the habitual offender statute does not create new or separate offenses and the habitual offender proceeding does not deal with the underlying facts on the substantive charge, the use of prior convictions at more than one habitual offender proceeding does not constitute double jeopardy." Baker, supra at 101. While this case presents a somewhat different question than those addressed in Durkoem and Baker, in that here the State filed an amended habitual offender count after successfully proving appellant's habitual offender status at the initial trial, the rationale of those cases is controlling.

After the State had successfully proven appellant's habitual offender status, the subsequent vacation of one of the prior felony convictions shown at the original proceeding created no impediment to a retrial on the issue of his habitual offender status. The trial court did not err in overruling appellant's motion to dismiss and motion to quash.

Appellant contends the trial court erred in allowing the State to file an amended habitual offender count alleging a prior unrelated felony conviction which was not alleged in the original charge.

On December 26, 1984, the State orally moved to file an amended habitual offender count. The motion was granted. The amended affidavit was filed under the same cause number as the original proceeding. The amended count alleged four prior unrelated felony convictions, one of which, unlawful possession of mail, was not alleged in the original count.

The statute upon which appellant relies provides:

"Notwithstanding any other provision in this section, an indictment or information shall not be amended in any respect which changes the theory or theories of the prosecution as originally stated or changes the identity of the offense charged; nor may any indictment or information be amended after arraignment for the purpose of curing a failure to charge or state an offense or legal insufficiency of the factual allegations." Ind. Code § 35-8.1-1-5(e) (Burns 1979) (repealed by Acts 1981, P.L. 298, recodified as Ind.Code § 35-84-1-5) (emphasis added).

The amended affidavit clearly stated that appellant was alleged to be an habitual offender, and in no way changed either the theory of the charge as originally stated or the identity of the "offense" charged. Appellant has not alleged any factual deficien-ey in either the original or amended habitual offender counts. See Anderson v. State (1982), Ind., 439 N.E.2d 558. We can discern no prejudice to appellant resulting from the amendment,. Gilmore v. State (1981), 275 Ind. 134, 415 N.E.2d 70. The trial court committed no error in allowing the State to file the amended habitual offender count.

In an issue raised in his motion to quash, appellant argues his retrial was motivated by prosecutorial vindictiveness. He contends the addition of a fourth alleged prior felony conviction in the amended charge, when the State was only required to prove two prior unrelated felony convie-tions, demonstrated prosecutorial vindictiveness.

That argument is without merit. The cases cited by appellant, Murphy v. State (1983), Ind., 453 N.E.2d 219 (Pivarnik, J., and Givan, C.J., dissenting) and Cherry v. State (1981), 275 Ind. 14, 414 N.E.2d 301 (Pivarnik, J., and Givan, C.J., dissenting), cert. denied, 453 U.S. 946, 102 S.Ct. 17, 69 L.Ed.2d 1033, are potentially applicable only where the State, following a successful appeal or motion for mistrial by a defendant, files more numerous or more severe charges for the same basic criminal conduct. Appellant was confronted on retrial with precisely the same charge, an *580 allegation that he was an habitual offender, the only change being in the specification of the prior felony convictions. There is no indication that the retrial was motivated by prosecutorial vindictiveness. See Durham, supra.

Appellant asserts the trial court improperly instructed the jury that in 1963 the offense of grand larceny was a felony.

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Bluebook (online)
496 N.E.2d 576, 1986 Ind. LEXIS 1252, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/denton-v-state-ind-1986.