Goolsby v. State

215 So. 2d 598, 44 Ala. App. 535, 1967 Ala. App. LEXIS 484
CourtAlabama Court of Appeals
DecidedNovember 28, 1967
Docket6 Div. 202
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 215 So. 2d 598 (Goolsby v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Alabama Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Goolsby v. State, 215 So. 2d 598, 44 Ala. App. 535, 1967 Ala. App. LEXIS 484 (Ala. Ct. App. 1967).

Opinions

The facts in this case show that appellant, Goolsby, was indicted by the Grand Jury in July, 1959, on three counts: Count One, burglary; Count Two, grand larceny; and Count Three, buying, receiving and concealing stolen property. Goolsby, without counsel, entered a plea of guilty and was sentenced to serve ten years in the State penitentiary.

September 7, 1965, the judgment was set aside and appellant was granted a new trial. At the second trial, Goolsby filed three pleas of autrefois acquit, which were overruled.

The Attorney General, in brief, gives the following statement of facts:

"The evidence introduced by the State tended to show that the appellant and one Henry Lee Lucas broke a window at the Truck Auto Rental Company, in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 22, 1959. Upon entering the building through this window they carried a safe from the building through a door which they forced open and loaded the safe on a pick-up truck. This occurred during the early hours of the night. They hauled the safe to a wooded area located near the reservoir of the Birmingham Water Works and unloaded it.

"The next day the appellant and Lucas opened the safe and took from it certain money and a number of checks.

"After the appellant was arrested Lucas gave himself up to the law enforcement officers and made a statement confessing the crime and implicating the appellant. This statement was introduced into evidence.

"The appellant testified that he did not commit the crime and was not with Lucas on the night of September 22, 1959. He stated that Lucas implicated him in the crime because of a prior difficulty between the two men."

*Page 537
I.
Nowhere in the record before us appears a judgment on Goolsby's plea of guilty at his first arraignment. His brief states that he pleaded guilty to Count One, second degree burglary. Even if this were so, standing alone it would not necessarily acquit him of larceny charged in a separate count. Bowen v. State, 106 Ala. 178, 17 So. 335. Wildman v. State,42 Ala. App. 357, 165 So.2d 396, is concerned with punishment under Code 1940, T. 15, § 387.

When a defendant appeals from a judgment of conviction, he implicitly agrees in case of reversal to return to the stage of proceedings at which the reversible error occurred. A trial, after issue is joined, is of necessity treated as an indivisible unit.

Hence, for error during trial the former jurors are not called back and testimony begun anew, rather we have a new writ, venire facias de novo or a new trial. Sewall v. Glidden,1 Ala. 52; Grossman v. State, 241 Ind. 369, 172 N.E.2d 576

Under Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792,9 L.Ed.2d 799, Goolsby's first trial after the coram nobis judgment was a nullity because the court lacked one of its indispensable officers, an attorney for the defendant. We know that Gideon was retried — and acquitted.

If Goolsby's first arraignment was void, so too was any nol prosse consequent thereon. Hence, on the second trial the cause would revert de novo to arraignment because this was the severable point in the proceeding at which the former error infected judgment.

In United States v. Tateo, 377 U.S. 463, 84 S.Ct. 1587,12 L.Ed.2d 448, we find:

"The Fifth Amendment provides that no 'person [shall] be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb * * *.' The principle that this provision does not preclude the Government's retrying a defendant whose conviction is set aside because of an error in the proceedings leading to conviction is a well-established part of our constitutional jurisprudence. In this respect we differ from the practice obtaining in England. The rule in this country was explicitly stated in United States v. Ball, 163 U.S. 662, 671-672, 16 S.Ct. 1192, 1195, 41 L.Ed. 300, a case in which defendants were reindicted after this Court had found the original indictment to be defective. It has been followed in a variety of circumstances; see, e. g., Stroud v. United States, 251 U.S. 15, 40 S.Ct. 50, 64 L.Ed. 103, (after conviction reversed because of confession of error); Bryan v. United States, 338 U.S. 552, 70 S.Ct. 317, 94 L.Ed. 335 (after conviction reversed because of insufficient evidence); Forman v. United States, 361 U.S. 416, 80 S.Ct. 481, 4 L.Ed.2d 412 (after original conviction reversed for error in instructions to the jury).

"That a defendant's conviction is overturned on collateral rather than direct attack is irrelevant for these purposes, see Robinson v. United States, [6 Cir.,] 144 F.2d 392, 396, 397, aff'd on another ground, 324 U.S. 282, 65 S.Ct. 666, 89 L.Ed. 944. Courts are empowered to grant new trials under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, and it would be incongruous to compel greater relief for one who proceeds collaterally than for one whose rights are vindicated on direct review.

See also Anno. 75 A.L.R.2d 683, particularly § 7, p. 700, et seq.

We see no application here of any potential pleas of former jeopardy even if the appellant were to have properly proved a former judgment of conviction of second degree burglary; and, with an implicit acquittal of grand larceny and receiving stolen goods, Bell v. State, 48 Ala. 684, would not apply here. Brooks v. State, 42 Ala. App. 69, 152 So.2d 441, does.

II.
The trial before the jury occurred January 12 and 13, 1966. Miranda v. State *Page 538 of Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, applies to trials after June 13, 1966, as required by Johnson v. State of New Jersey,

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Bluebook (online)
215 So. 2d 598, 44 Ala. App. 535, 1967 Ala. App. LEXIS 484, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/goolsby-v-state-alactapp-1967.