Lockett v. State

656 So. 2d 76, 1995 WL 215555
Mississippi Supreme Court·Decided April 13, 1995·No. 94-DP-00673-SCT·Published·Cited by 10 cases

Opinion

656 So.2d 76 (1995)

Carl Daniel LOCKETT
v.
STATE of Mississippi.

No. 94-DP-00673-SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi, En Banc.

April 13, 1995.
Certiorari Denied June 19, 1995.

*77 Julie Ann Epps, Jackson, James W. Craig, Jackson, W.S. Moore, Jackson, for appellant.

Michael C. Moore, Atty. Gen., Jackson, Marvin L. White, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

Certiorari Denied June 19, 1995. See 115 S.Ct. 2595.

ON MOTION TO VACATE OR SET ASIDE JUDGMENT, CONVICTION AND SENTENCE OF DEATH

DAN M. LEE, Presiding Justice.

This matter is before the Court on a second and successive "Application For Leave To File Motion To Vacate Or Set Aside Judgment, Conviction and Sentence of Death" filed pursuant to the Mississippi Uniform Post-Conviction Collateral Relief Act, Miss. Code Ann. § 99-39-1, et seq. (1994).

Carl Daniel Lockett was convicted of the capital murder of Geraldine Calhoun and sentenced to death by virtue of jury verdicts returned in the Circuit Court of Lamar County. This Court, on direct appeal, affirmed Lockett's conviction and sentence. On a later date, we denied Lockett's first application to proceed in the trial court for post-conviction relief.

Lockett has filed a second and successive application in this court seeking leave to file in the trial court yet another motion for post-conviction relief. Lockett seeks vacation of both his conviction of capital murder and the sentence of death imposed in its wake.

Without passing judgment on the actual merits of his five (5) allegations, we deny Lockett's second application for post-conviction relief by virtue of the time bar found in Miss. Code Ann. § 99-39-5(2) (1994) and the successive writ bar found in Miss. Code Ann. *78 § 99-39-27(9) (1994), which constitutes a bar to a second or successive petition. In short, each of the five (5) claims made belatedly by Lockett is doubly barred.

I. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On December 13, 1985, John Calhoun and his wife, Geraldine, were brutally murdered in Rankin County. On January 14, 1986, a Rankin County Grand Jury returned two capital murder indictments against Lockett, one for the murder of John, the other for the murder of Geraldine. Following changes of venue to Jackson and Lamar Counties, respectively, Lockett was tried and convicted on April 2, 1986, for the murder of John Calhoun (Lockett I — DP-0672 formerly DP-64) and for Geraldine's murder on May 5 and 6, 1986 (Lockett II — DP-0673 formerly DP-67). Lockett was sentenced to death on each occasion. This published opinion addresses Lockett's second application for post-conviction relief from the conviction and sentence of death imposed for the murder of Geraldine Calhoun (Lockett II — DP-0673).

On September 30, 1987, Lockett's conviction of capital murder and sentence of death were affirmed by this Court on direct appeal in Lockett v. State, 517 So.2d 1346 (Miss. 1987), cert. denied 487 U.S. 1210, 108 S.Ct. 2858, 101 L.Ed.2d 895 (1988), reh. denied 487 U.S. 1250, 109 S.Ct. 13, 101 L.Ed.2d 963 (1988). Lockett later filed a "Motion to Vacate or Set Aside Judgment, Conviction and Sentence of Death" under the Mississippi Uniform Post-Conviction Collateral Relief Act, Miss. Code Ann. § 99-39-1 et seq., which was denied in Lockett v. State, 614 So.2d 898 (Miss. 1992), cert. denied ___ U.S. ___, 114 S.Ct. 681, 126 L.Ed.2d 649 (1994), reh. denied ___ U.S. ___, 114 S.Ct. 1212, 127 L.Ed.2d 559 (1994).

Lockett's first application for post-conviction relief, consisting of thirteen (13) individual grounds, was filed in Lockett II on December 22, 1988, and denied by this Court on October 1, 1992. On July 13, 1994, Lockett, by and through a fourth team of attorneys, filed the present application for post-conviction relief.

II. ANALYSIS

Lockett seeks permission to litigate in the trial court five issues, four (4) of which implicate the guilt-finding phase and one (1) implicating the sentence-determining phase of his two stage trial.

1. Whether the indictment is void and Lockett's conviction must be reversed because it fails to set forth the essential elements of burglary — the underlying felony of capital murder.
2. Whether Lockett's conviction must be reversed where the jury may have found him guilty without a finding beyond a reasonable doubt of the essential elements of the offense of capital murder.
3. Whether the trial court erred in admitting Lockett's confessions which were obtained in violation of his constitutional right to counsel.
4. Whether the trial court erred in overruling Lockett's request that the jury be instructed to consider as a mitigating factor that Lockett was under the influence of intoxicating beverages and/or drugs.
5. Whether the trial court erred in overruling Lockett's request for a lesser included offense instruction of manslaughter in violation of the Constitutions of the United States and Mississippi.

Lockett has also filed a second and successive post-conviction application aimed at his conviction and death sentence imposed for the murder of John Calhoun, Geraldine's husband. The first three claims presented in the present application dealing with Geraldine's murder are identical to the three claims presented in the companion application involving the murder of John.

A.

CLAIMS 1-3.

We have this day denied post-conviction relief in the companion application. Accordingly, Claims 1-3 of the present appeal are controlled by our decision rendered today in Lockett II, No. 94-DP-0672, the companion post-conviction appeal. Specifically, these claims are time barred by virtue of the three (3) year statute of limitations set forth in § 99-39-5(2), and they are also successive *79 writ barred by virtue of Miss. Code Ann. § 99-39-27(9). In short, each of the first three (3) claims made belatedly by Lockett is doubly barred.

Lockett is presently represented by his fourth team of lawyers. He was represented at trial in 1986 by William O. Townsend, a sole practitioner and part-time public defender, and Cullen C. Taylor and William E. Andrews, III, private practitioners. On direct appeal to this Court in 1987, Lockett was represented by Clive A. Stafford Smith and Bryan A. Stevenson of Atlanta, Georgia. Rebecca L. Wiggs, a member of the Watkins and Eager law firm in Jackson represented Lockett in his first application for post-conviction relief filed in 1988 and denied by this Court in 1992. In this, his second, application for post-conviction relief, Lockett is represented in 1994 by James W. Craig and Julie Ann Epps, two attorneys with the Mississippi Capital Defense Resource Center.

We turn now, within the limited context of a double bar, to an individual examination of Lockett's two remaining claims, one implicating the sentence-determining phase and the other, the guilt-finding phase of Lockett's bifurcated trial for capital murder.

B.

CLAIM 4.

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