Toliver v. State

881 So. 2d 1070, 2003 WL 21480617
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Alabama
DecidedJune 27, 2003
DocketCR-02-0665
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 881 So. 2d 1070 (Toliver 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
Toliver v. State, 881 So. 2d 1070, 2003 WL 21480617 (Ala. Ct. App. 2003).

Opinion

881 So.2d 1070 (2003)

Eddie TOLIVER, Jr.
v.
STATE of Alabama.

CR-02-0665.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama.

June 27, 2003.
Certiorari Denied November 21, 2003.

*1071 Eddie Toliver, Jr., pro se.

William H. Pryor, Jr., atty. gen., and Jean A. Therkelsen, asst. atty. gen., for appellee.

Alabama Supreme Court 1021697.

On Application for Rehearing

PER CURIAM.

The opinion of April 25, 2003, is withdrawn and the following opinion is substituted therefor.

Eddie Toliver, Jr., appeals the circuit court's summary denial of his Rule 32, Ala.R.Crim.P., petition for postconviction relief, in which he attacked his February 2000 guilty-plea conviction for robbery in the second degree and his resulting sentence, as a habitual offender, of life imprisonment.

Toliver was indicted for one count of burglary in the first degree, one count of robbery in the first degree, and one count of theft of property in the second degree. Pursuant to a plea agreement with the State, Toliver agreed to plead guilty to robbery in the second degree in exchange for the burglary and theft charges being nol-prossed. He did not appeal his conviction. However, on July 18, 2002, he filed the present Rule 32 petition. In his petition, Toliver alleged that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to accept his plea to second-degree robbery because, he said, the indictment charging him with robbery in the first degree did not include an essential element of robbery in the second degree — that he was aided in the robbery by another person — and, thus, the indictment did not encompass the offense of robbery in the second degree. After receiving a response from the State, the circuit court summarily denied the petition on December 3, 2002.

On appeal, Toliver asserts the same claim he presented in his petition.[1] The State argues that this claim is not jurisdictional and that it is time-barred by Rule 32.2(c), Ala.R.Crim.P., because Toliver's petition was filed approximately five months after the two-year limitations period had expired.[2] However, it is well settled that "a trial court is without authority to accept a plea of guilty to an offense not encompassed by the charge in the indictment." Edwards v. State, 671 So.2d 129, 130 (Ala.Crim.App.1995). "When the trial court accepts a guilty plea under such circumstances, the court's judgment is *1072 void, because the defendant is convicted of an offense for which the defendant has not been indicted and an essential requisite of jurisdiction is therefore missing." Id. Contrary to the State's contention, Toliver's claim is clearly jurisdictional in nature and, thus, is not subject to the procedural bars in Rule 32.2.

In Ex parte Cole, 842 So.2d 605 (Ala.2002), the Alabama Supreme Court was faced with a situation identical to the one presented here. Cole had been indicted for first-degree robbery; he pleaded guilty to second-degree robbery. On appeal, Cole argued that the trial court did not have jurisdiction to accept his plea to second-degree robbery because, he said, second-degree robbery was not a lesser-included offense of first-degree robbery as charged in his indictment. Specifically, Cole maintained that second-degree robbery required proof of an element not required for first-degree robbery — that the defendant was aided in the commission of the robbery by another person — and that his indictment for first-degree robbery had been improperly amended to charge second-degree robbery. In holding that Cole's first-degree robbery indictment had been improperly amended to charge second-degree robbery, the Alabama Supreme Court stated:

"A valid indictment or complaint, giving the accused notice of the criminal charge against him, is the source of the subject-matter jurisdiction to try a contested criminal case. Ash v. State, 843 So.2d 213 (Ala.2002); see also Ex parte Looney, 797 So.2d [427] at 429 [(Ala.2001)]; Batey v. State, 755 So.2d 593, 595 (Ala.Crim.App.1999). Absent a valid indictment or complaint, a trial court would lack subject-matter jurisdiction to try, to convict, or to sentence a defendant in a contested criminal case. See Ash v. State, supra; see also Batey v. State, supra. Rule 13.5(a), Ala.R.Crim.P., prohibits any amendment to an indictment that changes the offense or charges a new offense not contemplated in the original indictment. See also Rule 13.2(c), Ala.R.Crim.P. (specifying an offense in the indictment provides notice to the accused that he has been charged with all lesser offenses necessarily included in the charged offense). Rule 13.5(a), in conjunction with Rule 13.2(c), allows an indictment to be amended to charge a lesser offense included within the offense charged in the indictment because the accused is placed on sufficient notice of the charge against which he must defend, and the accused is not being tried for an offense different from the charge intended by the grand jury. See Ash v. State, supra; Ex parte Washington, 571 So.2d 1062, 1063 (Ala.1990); Woods v. State, 675 So.2d 47, 50 (Ala.Crim.App.1995); Gayden v. State, 38 Ala.App. 39, 42, 80 So.2d 495, 498 (1954).
"Although there is no indication that the prosecutor actually moved the trial court to amend Cole's original indictment, cases dealing with entry of a guilty plea to an offense other than the offense charged in the indictment sometimes describe the process as `amending' the indictment. For example, in Fleming v. State, 814 So.2d 310 (Ala.Crim.App.2001), and Wingard v. State, 821 So.2d 240 (Ala.Crim.App.2001), reference to the amendment appears within quotation marks, indicating that no formal amendment has occurred but that the process is equivalent to amending the indictment. Regardless of whether by formal amendment or by implicit amendment, the entry of a plea to an offense different than the one charged in the indictment must not violate Rules 13.5(a) and 13.2(c), which, as previously noted, combine to permit only those *1073 amendments that charge a lesser-included offense. Furthermore, the defendant cannot consent to an amendment that effectively charges an offense not contemplated by the indictment. See Hugh Maddox, Alabama Rules of Criminal Procedure § 13.5 (3d ed.1999); see also Wingard v. State, supra; Murray v. State, 814 So.2d 1006 (Ala.Crim.App.2001); Green v. State, 619 So.2d 952, 953 (Ala.Crim.App.1993); Ross v. State, 529 So.2d 1074, 1077 (Ala.Crim.App.1988).
"....
"If at [Cole's] guilty-plea proceedings, the indictment was `amended,' the State was required to comply with Rules 13.5(a) and 13.2(c) and to confine its `amendment' to lesser offenses necessarily included within the offense of first-degree robbery. In this respect, a defendant charged with first-degree robbery by an indictment that describes the defendant's conduct as occurring in the presence of another aiding him could plead guilty to second-degree robbery as a lesser-included offense, because robbery in the second degree requires the use of force or the threatened use of force while the defendant is `aided by another person actually present.' § 13A-8-42, Ala.Code 1975.

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Bluebook (online)
881 So. 2d 1070, 2003 WL 21480617, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/toliver-v-state-alacrimapp-2003.