Evans v. State

568 So. 2d 878, 1990 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 1068, 1990 WL 152220
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Alabama
DecidedAugust 24, 1990
DocketCR 89-348
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 568 So. 2d 878 (Evans v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Evans v. State, 568 So. 2d 878, 1990 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 1068, 1990 WL 152220 (Ala. Ct. App. 1990).

Opinion

BOWEN, Judge.

In 1984, Jeffery Reed Evans was convicted of burglary in the first degree and was sentenced as a habitual felony offender to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. That conviction was affirmed on appeal without opinion. Evans v. State, 482 So.2d 305 (Ala.Cr.App.1985). The Alabama Supreme Court denied a petition for writ of certiorari on February 28, 1986. Ex parte Evans, 493 So.2d 411 (Ala.1986).

In October 1986, Evans filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court claiming that his conviction was not supported by sufficient evidence. Evans v. Johnson, 86-T-0957-N. On January 24, 1989, a federal magistrate, relying on Bates v. State, 468 So.2d 207 (Ala.Cr.App.1985), concluded that the evidence was insufficient to support Evans’ conviction for first degree burglary because “[t]here was no proof that the petitioner was armed with a loaded shotgun at the time of the commission of the offense.” The magistrate declined to address the issues of whether the remaining evidence was sufficient to retry the petitioner on a lesser included offense or whether retrial is barred by the double jeopardy clause of the constitution.

On March 16, 1989, the United States District Court ordered the State to “release petitioner Evans from state custody unless, within 90 days from the date of this judgment, the State either resentences or retries him in accordance with the memorandum opinion entered this date.” In that memorandum opinion, the federal court stated:

“It appears arguable that the State of Alabama may simply resentence rather than retry Evans on the second degree burglary offense. See Beverly v. Jones, 854 F.2d 412 (11th Cir.1988), petition for cert. filed, (U.S. Jan. 17, 1989) (No. —); Dickenson v. Israel, 644 F.2d 308 (7th Cir.1981). However, whether the state may, indeed, do so under both state and federal law should be addressed in the first instance by the state courts. The court believes that a federal court should not pass on this issue, first, until after the state determines what it is in fact going to do (that is, sentence or retry Evans on second degree burglary) and, second, until after the state courts have passed on the legality of whatever the state decides to do. This court will therefore modify the relief suggested by the magistrate to allow the state either to resentence or to retry Evans for second degree burglary. By allowing the state either to resentenee or to retry Evans, however, the court does [not] pass on the legality of either course.”

On June 12, 1989, the Circuit Court of Pike County adjudged Evans guilty of burglary in the second degree and sentenced him as a habitual felony offender to 99 years’ imprisonment. Evans raises two issues on this appeal from that adjudication and resentencing.

[880]*880I.

Evans argues that the action of the circuit court in resentencing him for a lesser included offense is barred by principles of double jeopardy.

This question was answered in Beverly v. Jones, 854 F.2d 412 (11th Cir.1988), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 2104, 104 L.Ed.2d 665 (1989).

“We conclude that the Constitution’s prohibition against double jeopardy did not preclude the State from retrying Beverly on the lesser included offense [of first-degree murder] once the Court of Criminal Appeals reversed his conviction on the greater offense [of intentional killing in the course of a robbery]. To hold otherwise would impose too high a price on society.”

Beverly, 854 F.2d at 416. See also Dickenson v. Israel, 644 F.2d 308, 309 (7th Cir.1981), holding that the defendant’s Fifth Amendment right to be free from double jeopardy was not violated when the state appellate court vacated the defendant’s conviction for armed robbery but affirmed the implicit conviction of the lesser included offense of simple robbery.

The Alabama Supreme Court addressed this issue in Ex parte Beverly, 497 So.2d 519 (Ala.1986).

“[A] judgment of conviction is a bar to any further prosecution for an offense which was embraced within the offense upon which the conviction was laid (i.e., a lesser included offense).... However, a distinction must be made between a judgment of conviction which is sustainable on appeal and one, like that in this case, which was reversed because of the trial court’s error in submitting to the jury a charge unsupported by the evidence. The former is a bar to any further prosecution, but the latter is not a bar to further prosecution on the lesser included offenses found to have been supported by the evidence and upon which the jury was charged.”

Beverly, 497 So.2d at 524 (emphasis in original).

II.

We have reviewed the transcript and record of Evans’ trial. The trial court charged the jury on both burglary in the first and second degree. The State’s evidence, viewed in its most favorable light, proves that Evans broke into the residence of Dr. Jim Colley of Troy, Alabama. Dr. Colley discovered Evans in the process of burglarizing his residence but Evans fled. Dr. Colley testified that “two shotguns ... were wrapped up in a sheet on the floor.” The shotguns had been removed from a gun case. There was no testimony indicating whether or not the shotguns were loaded. Dr. Colley also testified that he saw Evans inside his house with a “metal object” in his hand: “I’m not sure it was metal. It was something long. I assume it was a tire tool. That was the first thing that came to my mind; and that’s what made me turn around. It sort of resembled a tire tool.” This metal object was not a shotgun.

In Bates, 468 So.2d at 208, this Court indicated that “ ‘[a] burglar who steals an unloaded revolver as part of his loot does not “arm himself with a deadly weapon.” ’ ” In Buchannon v. State, 554 So.2d 477, 493-94 (Ala.Cr.App.), cert. denied, 554 So.2d 494 (Ala.1989), this Court held “that in determining whether a defendant [in a prosecution for burglary] is ‘armed,’ a distinction must be made between the perpetrator who equips himself with a weapon prior to the crime and the perpetrator who steals a weapon during a crime. In order for the latter to be ‘armed,’ there must be a showing that the stolen weapon was possessed in ‘such a manner as to indicate his willingness or present ability to use it as a “weapon” ’ and not merely as loot from the crime.” This holding, and that of Bates, was expressly overruled in Pardue v. State, [Ms. 89-313, June 22, 1990] (Ala.1990).

“The statute clearly sets forth the conduct that is prohibited. A person commits the crime of burglary in the first degree when, in the course of committing a burglary, the person is armed with a deadly weapon. The statute does not require that the burglar be armed prior [881]*881to entering a dwelling.

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Bluebook (online)
568 So. 2d 878, 1990 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 1068, 1990 WL 152220, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/evans-v-state-alacrimapp-1990.