State v. Gilmore

617 S.W.2d 581, 1981 Mo. App. LEXIS 3388
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedMay 4, 1981
DocketNo. WD 31950
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 617 S.W.2d 581 (State v. Gilmore) 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
State v. Gilmore, 617 S.W.2d 581, 1981 Mo. App. LEXIS 3388 (Mo. Ct. App. 1981).

Opinion

CLARK, Judge.

Rocky L. Gilmore appeals denial of motions filed to obtain relief from consecutive sentences of seven years for burglary and five years for stealing. Gilmore had entered pleas of guilty to the offenses April 21, 1975, imposition of sentence was suspended and he was placed on probation for five years. Gilmore subsequently was found to have violated his probation, it was revoked and the sentences were imposed May 3, 1979. The motions here in question were filed November 19, 1979.

Post-sentence proceedings, commencing with Gilmore’s motions, conform to no recognized or conventional form and ignore the rules which mandate procedures in such cases. The first motion filed by Gilmore’s attorney sought leave to withdraw the guilty pleas, claimed manifest injustice and was presumably grounded on then Rule 27.-25, now Rule 29.07(d). The motion asserted that Gilmore had not been aware of potential consecutive sentences, he did not understand that time on probation would not be credited against his sentence and he further claimed that juvenile court jurisdiction had not been properly relinquished.

In the same motion, Gilmore alternatively claimed that his sentence should be reduced by his unsuccessful period of probation and he asserted that imposition of consecutive sentences was “unconstitutionally, unjustly and unlawfully ordered.” The latter allegations specified no factual or legal grounds to support the relief claimed which was for correction of the sentence and not to justify withdrawal of the guilty pleas. Compounding the confusion is the fact that the motions were filed and subsequent proceedings were recorded in the original criminal case. Although the original motion signed only by counsel was later supplemented by a pleading entitled “Affidavit In Compliance With Rule 27.26” and signed by Gilmore, such compliance is quite apparently dubious.

An evidentiary hearing was provided Gilmore on the motions and on June 2, 1980, the trial court entered findings and denied the motions. That order included the recitation that upon agreement of the parties, the proceeding was considered to have been governed by Rule 27.26. Despite that observation and a gratuitous realignment of the parties in the style of the case, this appeal is in fact prosecuted from an order entered post judgment in the criminal case long after the trial court had lost jurisdiction.

In briefs and argument, neither party here has raised any procedural objection to the method employed for presenting Gilmore’s challenge to his sentence. The original claim to withdraw the guilty pleas has not been pursued, the contention subsequently having emerged that Gilmore seeks only an aggregate sentence of no more than seven years and consideration of credit for time spent on probation. All other factual allegations and legal contentions of the pleadings were tacitly abandoned before the evidentiary hearing which focused on Gilmore’s assertion that he was misinformed or uninformed as to the prospective sentence at the time his pleas were accepted and probation was granted.

Briefing and argument here add little to extricate the case from previous deficiencies. At the evidentiary hearing, the sole contention developed by testimony was that failure to inform Gilmore of potential consecutive sentences on revocation of probation resulted in lack of a knowing and voluntary plea, a circumstance which would, of course, not justify the result urged, imposition of concurrent sentences. That claim, however, has not been briefed or argued here and is thus abandoned. Herron v. State, 498 S.W.2d 530, 531 (Mo.1973); Jones v. State, 591 S.W.2d 153 (Mo.App.1979).

[583]*583On this appeal, in his primary point, Gilmore asserts that the trial court erred in failing to find the information charging the offenses to have been defective thereby vitiating the conviction and sentence. Secondly, he complains that no findings were entered by the trial court on the claim for sentence credit as to all or part of the probation term. Although neither of these points was set out in Gilmore’s motion, the subjects were addressed in the memorandum ruling by the trial court apparently because Gilmore’s attorney offered arguments on the issues.

The jurisdictional question, which we consider sua sponte, is without reported precedent. There is no doubt that Rule 27.26 was promulgated with the intent that the procedure there mandated is the exclusive remedy available to a prisoner in custody who seeks relief from a sentence on constitutional grounds or because the sentencing court was without jurisdiction. Hindman v. Crouch, 560 S.W.2d 874 (Mo.banc 1978). The rule itself requires substantial compliance with the appended form. Rule 27.26(c). Proceedings to withdraw guilty pleas or to vacate sentences contemplate an orderly lawyer-like presentation of issues. Davis v. State, 442 S.W.2d 510 (Mo.1969); State v. Rector, 547 S.W.2d 525 (Mo.App.1977). The cause is an independent civil action governed by the rules of civil procedure, State v. Edmondson, 438 S.W.2d 237, 242 (Mo.1969), and is thus not appropriately engrafted on the original criminal case.

The motion as originally filed on Gilmore’s behalf bears no indication that counsel was aware of or was attempting to pursue a remedy under Rule 27.26. Before the evidentiary hearing commenced, however, discussion was had among counsel, Gilmore and the court at which time it was unequivocally established that Gilmore intended and understood the nature of the proceeding to be that available to withdraw a guilty plea or, alternatively, to correct sentence, and that procedures of Rule 27.26 controlled. The state concurred in the understanding and all proceeded thereafter on that basis.

In State v. Werbin, 597 S.W.2d 663 (Mo.App.1980), this court dismissed an appeal from an order in a criminal case denying Werbin’s motion to withdraw his plea of guilty. That motion had been filed after imposition of sentence and the appeal from the adverse ruling was lodged out of time as measured by post-judgment rules in criminal causes. Werbin urged that his motion be regarded as one filed under Rule 27.26, thus avoiding the jurisdictional defect also noted in the subject case. In Werbin, however, unlike the present case, “judicial conversion” of a post-sentencing motion in the criminal case to an independent civil action under Rule 27.26 was advocated for the first time on appeal. Also in Werbin the jurisdictional defect was asserted by the state as ground for dismissal of the appeal.

The present case is distinguishable from Werbin in that here the nature of the proceeding was expressly defined before the evidentiary hearing commenced. Additionally, the state was not only informed, but acquiesced in a de facto revision of the defective pleadings and inappropriate docketing. Dismissal of this appeal on jurisdictional grounds would necessarily entitle Gilmore to renew his claims in a proper action under Rule 27.26 without expectation that an additional motion and hearing would generate any different record from that now before this court.

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Bluebook (online)
617 S.W.2d 581, 1981 Mo. App. LEXIS 3388, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-gilmore-moctapp-1981.