State v. Summers

50 S.W.3d 890, 2001 Mo. App. LEXIS 934, 2001 WL 579851
Missouri Court of Appeals·Decided May 31, 2001·No. No. 23544·Published·Cited by 2 cases

Opinion

GARRISON, Judge.

Michael Wayne Summers (“Appellant”) was convicted by a jury of the class C felony of attempt to manufacture a controlled substance, § 564.011,1 and the related offense of second degree felony murder, § 558.011. Having been found to be a persistent misdemeanor offender, he was sentenced by the trial court to concurrent sentences of seven years and life imprisonment. On this appeal, Appellant contends that he was not a persistent misdemeanor offender, and that he should have been sentenced by a jury rather than by the trial court.

The procedural history of this case, which is determinative of this appeal, is somewhat complex and detailed. It involves provisions of §§ 557.086 and 558.016. Section 557.036 provides, in pertinent part:

2. The court shall instruct the jury as to the range of punishment authorized by statute and upon a finding of guilt to assess and declare the punishment as a part of their verdict, unless:
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(2) The state pleads and proves the defendant is a prior offender, persistent offender, dangerous offender, or persistent misdemeanor offender as defined in section 558.016, RSMo, ...
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4.If the defendant is found to be a prior offender, persistent offender, dangerous offender or persistent misdemeanor offender as defined in section 558.016, RSMo:
(1) If he has been found guilty of an offense, the court shall proceed as provided in section 558.016, RSMo; or
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Section 558.016 provides, in pertinent part:

1. The court may sentence a person who has pleaded guilty to or has been found guilty of an offense to a term of imprisonment as authorized by section 558.011 or to a term of imprisonment authorized by a statute governing the offense, if it finds the defendant is a prior offender or a persistent misdemeanor offender,
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2. A “prior offender” is one who has pleaded guilty to or has been found guilty of one felony.
3. A “persistent offender” is one who has pleaded guilty to or has been found guilty of two or more felonies committed at different times.
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5. A “persistent misdemeanor offender” is one who has pleaded guilty to or has been found guilty of two or more class A or B misdemeanors, committed at different times, which are defined as offenses under chapters 195, 565, 566, 567, 568, 569, 570, 571, 572, 573, 574, 575, and 576, RSMo.
6. The pleas or findings of guilty shall be prior to the date of commission of the present offense.
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The facts forming the basis of the charges for which Appellant was convicted occurred on October 1, 1997. A second amended information was filed prior to trial alleging that Appellant was a prior offender under § 558.016.2 because he had pleaded guilty in Arkansas on October 26, 1996 to the felonies of possession of a [892] controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia with intent to use. At the beginning of trial, when the State presented certified copies of the Arkansas convictions, it was determined that those pleas occurred on October 26, 1998, rather than 1996, and the second amended information was amended accordingly. Nevertheless, the trial court found Appellant to be a prior offender.

Following the jury verdicts, but before sentencing, the State sent a letter to Appellant’s counsel stating that it had just realized that the change of the date of the prior pleas in Arkansas from October 26, 1996 to October 26,1998 would not support a finding that Appellant was a prior offender since the dates of the convictions did not precede the date of the offense in the instant case. That letter acknowledged that the incorrect finding of a prior offender, with the associated consequences of taking sentencing away from the jury, might create an issue which Appellant would raise on appeal. In the letter, the State offered a compromise which was apparently not acceptable to Appellant. Appellant then raised the issue of his prior offender status in an amended motion for new trial, referring to the letter from the State in support.

This case is further complicated by the fact that during the presentence investigation, the State discovered that Appellant had previously pleaded guilty to misdemeanors in Dunklin County, Missouri. One was on November 26, 1991, for the class A misdemeanor of assault of a law enforcement officer for which he received a suspended imposition of sentence and was placed on one year’s probation. The other was on June 6, 1997, for the class A misdemeanors of possession of marijuana and resisting arrest. The record reflected, however, that after Appellant’s probation expired on the assault charge, the judge in that case entered a docket entry on December 23, 1992 as follows: “Defendant’s plea of guilty hereby set aside. Case dismissed.”

Section 558.016.1 provides that the court may sentence a person who has pleaded guilty to or has been found guilty of an offense if it finds the defendant is either a prior offender or a persistent misdemean- or offender, and § 558.016.5 defines a “persistent misdemeanor offender” as one who has pleaded guilty to or has been found guilty of two or more class A or B misdemeanors committed at different times.2 In an apparent effort to avoid the problems created by the use of insufficient prior felony convictions to establish that Appellant was a prior offender, the State filed a motion in Dunklin County entitled “Motion To Correct Docket Entry” directed at the December 23, 1992 entry. It alleged that the entry dismissing the case “was in accordance with the understanding of the proper procedure at that time,” and that “in addition to the entry of the order of dismissing the case and ordering the file closed, the docket sheet improvidently showed that Defendant’s guilty plea was set aside.” It complained that the State had received no notice of that entry, and that the proper procedure would have been to “merely order the file closed based upon the Defendant’s successful completion of the probation after suspended imposition of sentence but should have not reflected a setting aside of the guilty plea.” The motion requested that the court “correct the docket entry entered December 23, 1992, to reflect that the charge was dismissed upon completion of probation [893] and the file be closed but deleting the portion of the Order setting aside Defendant’s guilty plea.” That motion was sustained on February 10, 2000 by a judgment reciting that the “portion of 12-23-92 entry reciting ‘Defendant’s plea of guilty hereby set aside’ is deleted.”

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State v. Summers, 50 S.W.3d 890, 2001 Mo. App. LEXIS 934, 2001 WL 579851 (Mo. Ct. App. 2001).

50 S.W.3d 890 (State v. Summers) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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