Sours v. State

593 S.W.2d 208, 1980 Mo. LEXIS 441
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedJanuary 15, 1980
Docket61458
StatusPublished
Cited by167 cases

This text of 593 S.W.2d 208 (Sours v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sours v. State, 593 S.W.2d 208, 1980 Mo. LEXIS 441 (Mo. 1980).

Opinions

WELLIVER, Judge.

This is an appeal from the denial after hearing of appellant’s Rule 27.26 motion to set aside convictions entered October 4, 1977. Appellant seeks relief from convictions based on pleas of guilty to an information in two counts charging robbery first degree by means of a dangerous and deadly weapon, § 560.120, RSMo 1969 and § 560.-135, RSMo Supp.1975 (now § 569.020.1(2), RSMo 1978), and armed criminal action, § 559.225, RSMo Supp.1976 (now § 571.015, RSMo 1978). Appellant contends that convictions for both crimes based on one incident violates his constitutional right against being twice placed in jeopardy. Jurisdiction is in this Court because the case involves the constitutionality of a statute of this state. Mo.Const. art. V, § 3.

[210]*210On May 14, 1977, appellant accompanied Charles Mahan into a fast-food store named Mr. Quick, where Mahan, armed with a pistol, took $949.06 from the store’s clerk, Kendall Carnes. Mahan was charged with armed robbery and pleaded guilty, receiving a sentence of five years in the Department of Corrections. In an information filed June 20, 1977, appellant was charged with both armed robbery and armed criminal action. On October 5, 1977, appellant pleaded guilty to both counts. On January 5, 1978, appellant was sentenced to five years imprisonment on the robbery conviction and three years imprisonment on the armed criminal action conviction, the sentences to run consecutively.

On September 21, 1978, appellant filed a motion to vacate the convictions and sentences, alleging that his attorney rendered ineffective assistance; that the plea was coerced by the threat of the use of allegedly false testimony to be given by Charles Ma-han; and that the conviction for both first degree armed robbery and armed criminal action placed him in double jeopardy. On April 3, 1979, appellant by appointed counsel filed an amended motion alleging that the conviction for both offenses violated appellant’s constitutional right to be free from double jeopardy; that the consecutive sentences should be vacated because it is not mandatory for a sentence under the armed criminal action statute to run consecutively with the sentence for the underlying felony; that the trial court did not properly advise the appellant as to the range of punishment for the crimes with which he was charged; that the trial court failed to obtain an adequate factual basis before accepting appellant’s guilty pleas; and, that the sequence in which the appellant was to serve the two sentences should be reversed so as to permit him his statutory opportunity to be released on parole.

In a hearing held April 16,1979, appellant and his attorney withdrew all of the allegations contained in the amended motion except the claim based on double jeopardy and that based on the court’s alleged erroneous assumption that the armed criminal action statute required consecutive sentencing. In this hearing, appellant and respondent stipulated that both of the charges filed against appellant arose from the same occurrence, and that there was only one robbery involved. ■

On April 19,1979, the court sustained the part of the motion that was based on the court’s erroneous assumption that it could not make the armed criminal action sentence run concurrently with the robbery sentence. As a correction of the sentence entered January 5, 1978, the court resen-tenced appellant to five years on the robbery charge and three years on the armed criminal action charge, the sentences to run concurrently. Also on April 19, 1979, the court denied the part of the motion that was based on the claim of double jeopardy. On June 5, 1979, appellant filed with the circuit court his notice of appeal to this Court.

We are not here presented with a case involving multiple prosecutions for the same offense. The only question presented in this appeal is whether it constitutes double jeopardy to charge and convict a defendant in a single prosecution with both first degree robbery by means of a dangerous and deadly weapon and armed criminal action arising out of the same incident. We find that armed criminal action and the underlying felony, in this case robbery first degree are the “same offense’’ for double jeopardy purposes. We reverse the judgment of the trial court insofar as it denied appellant relief from his conviction for armed criminal action; we affirm the judgment of the trial court insofar as it denied appellant relief from his conviction for robbery first degree. To the extent that our decisions in State v. Valentine, 584 S.W.2d 92 (Mo. banc 1979) and State v. Treadway, 558 S.W.2d 646 (Mo. banc 1977), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 838, 99 S.Ct. 124, 58 L.Ed.2d 135 (1978) are inconsistent with this opinion, we disapprove those cases.

Analysis begins with the double jeopardy provision in the Missouri Constitution, Mo.Const. art. I, § 19 prohibits the state from placing a person “again in jeop[211]*211ardy of life or liberty for the same offense, after being once acquitted by a jury.” This language has been interpreted to apply “only where there has been an acquittal of the defendant by a jury.” Murray v. State, 475 S.W.2d 67, 70 (Mo.1972); Kansas City v. Henderson, 468 S.W.2d 48, 52 (Mo.1971), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 1004, 92 S.Ct. 570, 30 L.Ed.2d 557 (1971). Since the convictions from which appellant seeks relief were obtained in a single prosecution, Mo.Const. art. I, § 19 does not apply in this case.

While the double jeopardy provision in the Missouri Constitution does not resolve the issue presented, Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 793-96, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 2063, 23 L.Ed.2d 707 (1969) has held that the double jeopardy clause of the fifth amendment to the United States Constitution does apply to the states through the fourteenth amendment, because it is “fundamental to the American scheme of justice.” The fifth amendment provides: “[N]or shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” This provision prohibits not only multiple prosecutions but also multiple punishments for the same offense. North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969), decided the same day as Benton, stated that the guarantee against double jeopardy

has been said to consist of three separate constitutional protections. It protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal. It protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction. And it protects against multiple punishments for the same offense.

Id. at 717, 89 S.Ct. at 2076; Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 165, 97 S.Ct. 2221, 53 L.Ed.2d 187 (1977); State v. Parsons, 513 S.W.2d 430, 438 (Mo.1974). The Court in Pearce quoted at length from “the landmark case” of Ex parte Lange, 85 U.S. (18 Wall.) 163, 21 L.Ed. 872 (1874) as providing “the controlling constitutional principle.” 395 U.S. at 717, 89 S.Ct. 2072. The protection against multiple punishments was established in Lange in the following language:

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Bluebook (online)
593 S.W.2d 208, 1980 Mo. LEXIS 441, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sours-v-state-mo-1980.