Michael M. Pennell v. State of Missouri

467 S.W.3d 367, 2015 Mo. App. LEXIS 550, 2015 WL 2393272
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedMay 19, 2015
DocketED101708
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 467 S.W.3d 367 (Michael M. Pennell v. State of Missouri) 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
Michael M. Pennell v. State of Missouri, 467 S.W.3d 367, 2015 Mo. App. LEXIS 550, 2015 WL 2393272 (Mo. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

Gary M. Gaertner, Jr., Judge

Introduction

Michael M. Pennell (Movant) appeals from the motion court’s judgment denying his motion under Rule 29.15 1 for post-conviction relief after an evidentiary hearing. Movant challenges the motion court’s denial, asserting he was abandoned by his post-conviction counsel and his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to properly challenge the trial court’s jurisdiction. We affirm.

Background

A jury convicted Movant of one count of the class B felony of distribution, delivery, or sale of a controlled substance, in violation of Section 195.211, RSMo. (Cum. Supp. 2012). The court sentenced Movant to fifteen years’ imprisonment in the Missouri Department of Corrections. This Court affirmed Movant’s conviction and sentence on appeal. State v. Pennell, 399 S.W.3d 81 (Mo.App.E.D.2013).

Movant subsequently filed a pro se Rule 29.15 Motion asserting ineffective assistance from his pre-trial counsel, his trial counsel, and his appellate counsel. He asserted five grounds of ineffective assistance' by his trial counsel, Jim McConnell (McConnell), four grounds of ineffectiveness by appellate counsel, Alexa Pearson (Pearson), and two grounds of ineffectiveness by pre-trial counsel. The motion court appointed counsel on July 31, 2013. On August 23, 2013, Cinda Eichler (Ei-chler) entered her appearance as appointed counsel for Movant in this matter and requested an extension of time, which the motion court granted. On October 24, 2013, Movant filed a pro se motion for abandonment, asserting Eichler had a conflict of interest, in that she knew both McConnell and Pearson because she worked in the same office as McConnell (the public defender’s office in Columbia, Missouri) and used to work with Pearson. On November 5, 2013, Eichler filed a Statement in Lieu of Filing a Rule 29.15 Amended Motion (Statement), in which she asserted that, having reviewed the record and discussed the case with Movant, there were no additional claims to be raised. The motion court set the case for a hearing on all pending matters.

At the evidentiary hearing, the motion court first took up Movant’s motion for abandonment. Movant repeated his assertion of a conflict of interest and argued that the Statement constituted abandonment. He claimed that although Eichler had stated she had reviewed the record and found no additional claims, he had since reviewed the record and found an additional 10-12 claims, which he had sent to Eichler and the motion court in a letter dated October 6, 2013 (October 6 letter). Moreover, he claimed his pro se Rule 29.15 motion had “touch[ed] on” a meritorious jurisdictional issue in the context of another claim, which Eichler should have expanded. In addition, Movant asserted Ei- *371 chler’s Statement was untimely filed. • The State called McConnell, who testified he did not work in the same office as Eichler, but was a private attorney with his own law firm in Shelbina, Missouri, who occasionally takes cases from the Missouri Public Defender system; he had never met Eichler. Eichler testified that because she had filed the Statement, she had not abandoned Movant under the law. The court denied Movant’s motion for abandonment, finding Eichler had no conflict.

Movant requested a continuance to combine his pro se Rule 29.15 motion and his October 6 letter into one amended motion — and to “to make sure there [were not] more claims,” due to Rule 29.15(l)’s bar on successive motions. The motion court denied the request, stating Movant had had sufficient time to research and file all the issues. The court then heard testimony on Movant’s pro se Rule 29.15 motion and the claims in his October 6 letter. Eichler asked the court to take judicial notice of all the claims listed in Movant’s pleadings and submitted the claims on the pleadings. Movant also challenged the jurisdiction of the trial court to hear his underlying criminal case, because the crime was committed in Kansas, and thus Missouri courts did not have jurisdiction to prosecute him. Eichler called McConnell and pretrial counsel, and submitted an affidavit from Pearson, who was unavailable the day of the hearing.

McConnell testified, as relevant to this appeal, that he did not object to the.trial court’s jurisdiction because he did not believe the objection was appropriate, as Missouri has jurisdiction if any portion of the alleged offense occurred here. Moreover, the State already had the burden to prove that some element of the offense occurred in Missouri, so he did not believe a motion was necessary. He noted that he did file a motion to dismiss and raised the issue at trial and in his motion for new trial, and thus he believed “subject matter jurisdiction was covered as well as it could be.” Eichler also questioned McConnell about the remainder of Movant’s claims from the pro se motion and the October 6 letter.

Following the hearing, the motion court denied Movant’s pro se Rule 29.15 motion. As relevant for appeal, the court concluded that McConnell’s decision not to object to jurisdiction did not prejudice Movant, in that he failed to show the result of the trial would have been different. This appeal follows.

Standard of Review

Appellate review of the denial of a post-conviction motion is limited to a determination of whether the findings and conclusions of the motion court are clearly erroneous. Rule 29.15(k). The motion court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law are clearly erroneous only if the reviewing court, having examined the entire record, is left with the definite and firm impression that a mistake has been made. Price v. State, 422 S.W.3d 292, 294 (Mo. banc 2014). We defer to the motion court’s superior ability to judge the credibility of witnesses. Bradley v. State, 292 S.W.3d 561, 566 (Mo.App.E.D.2009).

Discussion

Points 1 & II

In his first point on appeal, Movant argues that the motion court erred in not complying with Rule 29.15, in that the court did not sua sponte inquire into the performances of both Movant and Eichler after Eichler abandoned him by filing her Statement out of time. In point two, he argues that the motion court erred in finding Eichler did not abandon Movant, because Rule 29.15(e) requires appointed counsel to investigate the facts and claims *372 in a movant’s pro se motion, but Eichler failed to ascertain and present justiciable claims missing from Movant’s pro se motion before filing her Statement and failed to show in the Statement what actions she had taken to ensure Movant’s pro se Rule 29.15 motion included all the facts and claims it needed to. The same analysis resolves both these points, and thus we address them together and deny both.

When a movant files a pro se

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Related

Chatman v. State
558 S.W.3d 528 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 2018)
Hendricks v. State
519 S.W.3d 510 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 2017)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
467 S.W.3d 367, 2015 Mo. App. LEXIS 550, 2015 WL 2393272, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/michael-m-pennell-v-state-of-missouri-moctapp-2015.