Hatchett v. State

909 S.W.2d 748, 1995 Mo. App. LEXIS 1813, 1995 WL 638297
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedOctober 31, 1995
DocketNo. 20129
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 909 S.W.2d 748 (Hatchett v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hatchett v. State, 909 S.W.2d 748, 1995 Mo. App. LEXIS 1813, 1995 WL 638297 (Mo. Ct. App. 1995).

Opinion

CROW, Judge.

Appellant pled guilty to robbery (Count I), kidnapping (Count II), and rape (Count III). The plea court sentenced Appellant to life imprisonment on Count I, fifteen years’ imprisonment on Count II, and fifteen years’ imprisonment on Count III, the sentence on Count II to run concurrently with the sentence on Count I, but the sentence on Count III to run consecutively to the sentences on Counts I and II.

Appellant filed a timely pro se motion per Rule 24.0351 to vacate the judgment and sentences. Appellant thereafter filed an amended pro se motion to vacate. Counsel appointed to represent Appellant filed no amended motion.

The motion court ultimately entered judgment denying relief without an evidentiary hearing. Appellant brings this appeal from that judgment.

Appellant’s motions to vacate endeavored to plead sundry grounds for relief; however, only two are in issue in this appeal. The first is an allegation that the lawyer who represented Appellant when he pled guilty (“plea counsel”) rendered ineffective assistance in that he “failed to inquire into the tainted police line up upon which the alleged victim was being led by suggestion of the officer conducting the line up.” We preface our discussion of that issue with a synopsis of the facts recited by the prosecutor at the time Appellant pled guilty.

On December 2, 1998, a female clerk at a convenience store in Scott County was confronted by a man who held “what felt to be a gun to her side.” The culprit commanded the clerk to open the cash register; the culprit took some $300. The culprit then forced the clerk outside and into a truck, stating he was going to shoot her. The culprit drove to another site where he ordered the clerk to undress. She complied, and the culprit then had sexual intercourse with her.

Upon viewing a videotape of the confrontation in the store, investigating officers believed the culprit was Appellant. After being arrested, Appellant told the sheriff he had committed the acts described above.

Following the prosecutor’s narrative, the plea court addressed Appellant:

“Q. Mr. Hatchett, you heard the facts and circumstances of the crime that the State believes the evidence would show. Is what she stated true?
A. Yes, sir.”

The motion court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law include this:

“Movant ... states that his counsel failed to inquire into the tainted police line up upon which the alleged victim was being led by suggestion of the officer conducting the line up.... Movant proposes a conclusion unsupported by facts which, if true, would entitle Movant to relief. Mov-ant is denied relief on this issue.”

The sole point relied on in Appellant’s brief avers the motion court erred in denying relief without an evidentiary hearing in that Appellant pled facts which, if true, would warrant relief and which are unrefuted by the record. Those facts, according to Appellant, are that plea counsel rendered ineffective assistance in failing “to investigate the tainted police lineup in which Appellant was identified by the victim.” Appellant insists that plea counsel’s dereliction rendered Appellant’s guilty pleas involuntary because he was forced to plead guilty rather than proceed to trial with an unprepared lawyer.

[750]*750Our review of the motion court’s findings and conclusions is limited to a determination of whether they are clearly erroneous. Rule 24.035(j); Wilson v. State, 813 S.W.2d 833, 835[5] (Mo. banc 1991). Such findings and conclusions are deemed clearly erroneous only if, after reviewing the entire record, we are left with the definite and firm impression that a mistake has been made. Id.

A prisoner seeking postconviction relief is entitled to an evidentiary hearing only if: (1) he pleads facts, not conclusions, which, if true, would entitle him to relief, (2) the factual allegations are not refuted by the record, and (3) the matters complained of were prejudicial to him. State v. Blankenship, 830 S.W.2d 1, 16[27] (Mo. banc 1992).

Appellant’s motion to vacate made only eonclusional allegations that the lineup was “tainted” and the victim was “led” by “suggestion” of the officer conducting it. The motion pled no facts which, if true, would have demonstrated that the lineup was tainted, and the motion likewise pled no facts which, if true, would have shown how the officer led the victim by suggestion.

As the State’s brief reminds us, reliability rather than suggestiveness is the linchpin in determining admissibility of identification testimony. State v. Hornbuckle, 769 S.W.2d 89, 93[4] (Mo. banc 1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 860, 110 S.Ct. 171, 107 L.Ed.2d 128 (1989). The test for admissibility of identification testimony is two-pronged: (1) was the pretrial identification procedure impermissibly suggestive, and (2) if so, what impact did the suggestive procedure have upon the reliability of the identification made by the witness. Id. at 93[6].

Because Appellant’s motion pled no facts which would have established that the lineup was impermissibly suggestive and no facts which would have demonstrated the impact, if any, that the allegedly suggestive procedure had upon the reliability of the victim’s identification of Appellant (if indeed she identified him), we hold the motion court did not dearly err in finding that Appellant’s allegation regarding the lineup was “unsupported by facts which, if true, would entitle [him] to relief.”

Furthermore, where a prisoner, after pleading guilty, seeks postconviction relief on the ground that his plea resulted from ineffective assistance of counsel, the prisoner must demonstrate a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s errors, he would not have pled guilty and would have insisted on going to trial. Gilliland v. State, 882 S.W.2d 322, 325[4] (Mo.App.S.D.1994); Engelmann v. State, 864 S.W.2d 445, 446[5] (Mo.App.W.D.1993).

According to a “Petition to Enter Plea of Guilty” signed by Appellant and presented to the plea court at the time of the guilty pleas, the prosecutor promised Appellant that if Appellant pled guilty, the prosecutor would “not file as a prior,’ persistent, or class X offender.” Appellant’s motion to vacate contains no allegation that if plea counsel had successfully moved to suppress the victim’s identification of Appellant (if any), he would have stood trial instead of pleading guilty. Because of the lack of such an allegation, we hold the motion faded to plead facts warranting an evidentiary hearing.

Finally, after a guilty plea, counsel’s effectiveness is relevant in a motion for postconviction relief only to the extent it affects the voluntariness of the plea. Wilkins v. State, 802 S.W.2d 491, 497[2] (Mo. bane 1991), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 841, 112 S.Ct. 131, 116 L.Ed.2d 98 (1991).

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Bluebook (online)
909 S.W.2d 748, 1995 Mo. App. LEXIS 1813, 1995 WL 638297, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hatchett-v-state-moctapp-1995.