Skinner v. State

843 So. 2d 820, 2002 WL 1969391
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Alabama
DecidedMay 10, 2002
DocketCR-00-0817
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 843 So. 2d 820 (Skinner 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
Skinner v. State, 843 So. 2d 820, 2002 WL 1969391 (Ala. Ct. App. 2002).

Opinion

843 So.2d 820 (2002)

Dee Cee SKINNER
v.
STATE of Alabama.

CR-00-0817.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama.

May 10, 2002.
Rehearing Denied June 21, 2002.

*821 Susan Graham James, Montgomery, for appellant.

*822 William H. Pryor, Jr., atty. gen., and Joseph G.L. Marston III, asst. atty. gen., for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

The appellant, Dee Cee Skinner, was convicted of attempted distribution of a controlled substance, see §§ 13A-12-203 and 13A-12-211, Ala.Code 1975. He was sentenced, as a habitual offender, to 20 years' imprisonment; that sentence was enhanced by an additional five years' imprisonment pursuant to § 13A-12-250, Ala.Code 1975, and an additional five years' imprisonment pursuant to § 13A-12-270, Ala.Code 1975.

The evidence adduced at trial indicated the following. On June 13, 1994, Larry Williams and Wendell Major, deputies with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, drove to Tuscaloosa to participate in a softball game. They were traveling in Major's personal vehicle and were wearing softball uniforms. They stopped at a BP gasoline service station on McFarland Boulevard at approximately 9:00 a.m. that morning so that Williams could make a telephone call. While Williams was on the telephone, a vehicle drove into the parking lot of the station, and a man whom Williams identified as Skinner got out of the driver's seat. Skinner approached Williams and asked him if he wanted to "buy some weed," which Williams understood to be marijuana. (R. 73.) Williams told Skinner that he did not want to buy any marijuana and explained to Skinner that he was a police officer. Skinner then told Williams that he did not look like a police officer. At that point, the passenger in Skinner's vehicle, who was later identified as Skinner's brother Troy, held up a small plastic bag containing a green leafy substance that Williams believed to be marijuana and that was later determined to be marijuana, and said "Come on, buy this. This is some good stuff." (R. 75.) Williams and Major, who had witnessed the entire incident while sitting in his vehicle, then arrested both Skinner and his brother and held them until the Tuscaloosa police arrived.

I.

Skinner contends that his conviction is due to be reversed because, he says, "the State cannot still prosecute a case when more than three years have passed after the matter was withdrawn and filed." (Issue II in Skinner's brief at p. 2.)

The record reflects that Skinner was indicted in July 1994. After posting bond, Skinner failed to appear for a court appearance on October 28, 1994. A warrant was issued for his arrest on November 15, 1994, and another was issued on March 21, 1995; both were returned "not found."[1] On March 5, 1997, the State filed a "Motion to Withdraw and File with Leave to Reinstate" pursuant to § 15-8-71, Ala. Code 1975, requesting permission to withdraw and file the indictment, i.e., to place it on the inactive trial docket, with leave to reinstate the indictment to the active trial docket when Skinner was located. The trial court granted the State's request. Skinner was eventually located and was arrested on July 29, 2000. On November 2, 2000, Skinner filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, arguing that because it had been more than three years since the State had withdrawn and filed the indictment in 1997, the statute of limitations on the crime had expired; that the State had not moved to have the indictment reinstated since his arrest; and that "[t]o treat the old indictment as current would violate [his] constitutional right to due process." (C. 51.) On November 7, 2000, the State *823 moved to reinstate the indictment to the active trial docket; the motion was granted and Skinner's trial began on November 16, 2000.

Citing Drinkard v. State, 20 Ala. 9 (1852), and Finley v. State, 683 So.2d 7 (Ala.Crim.App.1996), Skinner argues that his prosecution was barred by the statute of limitations found in § 15-3-1, Ala.Code 1975, because the indictment remained on the inactive trial docket for over three years—from March 5, 1997, until November 7, 2000. According to Skinner, the statute of limitations expired on March 5, 2000, three years after the indictment was placed on the inactive docket.

Skinner's reliance on Drinkard and Finley, however, is misplaced. In Finley, the appellant was indicted in September 1990 for a crime that occurred in May 1990. The State nol-prossed the indictment in December 1990 upon agreement by the appellant to pay restitution to the victim. When the appellant failed to pay the restitution, the State reindicted the appellant in February 1994, after the three-year statute of limitations had run. This Court held that the prosecution of the appellant on the second indictment was barred by the statute of limitations.

Unlike the case in Finley, Skinner's indictment was not nol-prossed; rather, the State "withdrew and filed" the indictment pursuant to § 15-8-71, Ala.Code 1975, which provides:

"In all criminal cases in the circuit court in which a capias or warrant of arrest has issued for two terms and has been returned `not found,' the district attorney may, by leave of the court, withdraw and file the indictment, with leave to reinstate the same when the ends of justice require such reinstatement."

Although in Drinkard the Alabama Supreme Court held that withdrawing and filing an indictment was the equivalent of nol-prosing the indictment and operated as a discontinuance of the prosecution so as to bar prosecution outside the applicable statute of limitations, as the State correctly points out in its brief to this Court, Drinkard was decided in 1852, before what is now § 15-8-71 was first enacted.

Section 15-8-71 expressly allows for withdrawing and filing an indictment when an accused cannot be located for prosecution and, by doing so, has superseded the Alabama Supreme Court's holding in Drinkard that such action is the equivalent of nol-prosing an indictment. The law on withdrawing and filing an indictment, as it stands today, is explained in Charles E. Torcia, Wharton's Criminal Procedure § 217 (13th ed.1990), as follows:

"There may be a practice of passing an indictment to the files for the purpose, among others, of holding the charge in abeyance. Such a proceeding does not amount to a nolle prosequi or dismissal of the charge and does not have the effect of an acquittal; it amounts to nothing more than a postponement of the time of trial, and the indictment may be withdrawn from the files and redocketed for trial at a future term."

(Emphasis added; footnote omitted.)

Section 15-3-1 provides: "The prosecution of all felonies, except those specified in Sections 15-3-3 and 15-3-5, must be commenced within three years after the commission of the offense."[2] "A *824 prosecution may be commenced within the meaning of this chapter by finding an indictment, the issuing of a warrant or by binding over the offender." § 15-3-7, Ala. Code 1975. Skinner's prosecution "commenced" when he was indicted in July 1994, one month after the crime occurred. Although the indictment was subsequently withdrawn and filed for approximately three years, withdrawing and filing an indictment under § 15-8-71 is nothing more than moving the indictment from the trial court's active docket to the court's inactive docket; it is not the equivalent of nol-prosing or dismissing the indictment.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
843 So. 2d 820, 2002 WL 1969391, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/skinner-v-state-alacrimapp-2002.