Yates v. State

342 So. 2d 312
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 16, 1977
Docket49496
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 342 So. 2d 312 (Yates v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Yates v. State, 342 So. 2d 312 (Mich. 1977).

Opinion

342 So.2d 312 (1977)

Phillip G. YATES
v.
STATE of Mississippi.

No. 49496.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

February 16, 1977.

Phillip G. Yates, pro se.

A.F. Summer, Atty. Gen. by Catherine Walker, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

Before INZER, SUGG and LEE, JJ.

LEE, Justice:

ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF ERROR CORAM NOBIS

This is a pro se appeal by Phillip G. Yates from an order of the Circuit Court of *313 George County denying his Petition for Writ of Error Coram Nobis and Motion to Vacate Judgment. We affirm.

On February 18, 1964, Yates was indicted for murder, armed robbery and kidnapping by the George County Grand Jury and he entered pleas of guilty to all three (3) indictments. A jury was impaneled to determine punishment on the murder charge, and the court sentenced him to death upon return of the jury verdict. Sentences were not imposed on the guilty pleas to armed robbery and kidnapping.

This Court reversed the case, it was tried again, and Yates was sentenced to death a second time. For a period of eight (8) years the case was litigated in the State and Federal courts when finally, in 1972, the Federal court directed the State trial court to resentence Yates to a term prescribed by law, but for less than the penalty of death. Yates v. Cook, 408 U.S. 934, 92 S.Ct. 2850, 33 L.Ed.2d 746 (1972); Yates v. Breazeale, 466 F.2d 500 (5th Cir.1972).

Appellant was resentenced on November 13, 1972, to life imprisonment on the murder charge, and, at the same time, he was sentenced to life imprisonment on the armed robbery charge, and to thirty (30) years imprisonment on the kidnapping charge, the sentences to run consecutively. He contends the judgments on the armed robbery and kidnapping charges should be vacated, or, in the alternative, he should be allowed to enter pleas of not guilty to those charges, and he assigns the following errors:

(1) The charge of murder is a greater offense, and the charges of armed robbery and kidnapping are essential, interrelated elements of appellant's murder charge, therefore, the lesser charges are merged in the greater charge.

(2) Appellant was not sentenced on the armed robbery and kidnapping charges for eight (8) years, thereby denying him the right to a speedy trial.

(3) After a delay of eight (8) years appellant should have been allowed to change his plea from guilty to not guilty on the charges of armed robbery and kidnapping.

I.

Did appellant's three guilty pleas on charges of murder, armed robbery and kidnapping merge into the murder charge?

Appellant was indicted [see Appendix] for murder under Mississippi Code Annotated § 97-3-19(1)(a) [Section 2215, Mississippi Code of 1942 — amended 1974 to provide for capital murder]. That section follows:

"The killing of a human being, without the authority of law, by any means or in any manner, shall be murder in the following cases:
(a) When done with deliberate design to effect the death of the person killed, or of any human being;
(b) When done in the commission of an act eminently dangerous to others, and evincing a depraved heart, regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual;
(c) When done without any design to effect death, by any person engaged in the commission of the crime of rape, burglary, arson, or robbery, or in any attempt to commit such felonies."

Subsection (c) is the felony-murder statute, and the argument of appellant assumes that he was indicted under that section resulting in double jeopardy to him in violation if his constitutional rights. Appellant's written confession introduced on the murder trial indicated that "[H]e got scared and did not know what to do, and he decided to kill Gordon." Yates v. State, 251 Miss. 376, 392, 169 So.2d 792, 800 (1964).

It is clear from that case Yates knew he was entering pleas of guilty to three (3) separate and distinct charges and indictments.

This Court discussed double jeopardy in Burton v. State, 226 Miss. 31, 79 So.2d 242 (1955):

"The prohibition of the common law and of the constitution is against a second jeopardy for the same `offense', that is, for the identical act and crime. Teat v. State, 53 Miss. 439, 24 Am.Rep. 708; *314 Smith v. State, 67 Miss. 116, 7 So. 208; Huffman v. State, 84 Miss. 479, 36 So. 395; Cutshall v. State, 191 Miss. 764, 4 So.2d 289; Berry v. State, 195 Miss. 899, 16 So.2d 629. Or, as expressed in a number of cases, to entitle the accused to plead former jeopardy, the offenses charged in the two prosecutions must be the same in law and in fact. 22 C.J.S. p. 414, Criminal Law, par. 278; and cases cited.
There is a distinction between an offense and the unlawful act out of which it arises. And the test is not whether the accused has been tried for the same act, but whether he had been put in jeopardy for the same offense. State v. Rose, 89 Ohio St. 383, 386, 106 N.E. 50, L.R.A. 1915A 256; State v. Billotto, 104 Ohio St. 13, 135 N.E. 285; People v. Allen, 368 Ill. 368, 14 N.E.2d 397; State v. Fredlund, 200 Minn. 44, 273 N.W. 353, 113 A.L.R. 215.
In the case of State v. Rose, supra, the Court said:
`The words "same offense" means same offense, not the same transaction, not the same acts, not the same circumstances or same situation * * *. It is not enough that some single element of the offense charged may have a single element of some other offense as to which the defendant had theretofore been in jeopardy, but the constitutional provision requires that it shall be the "same offense". The usual test accepted by the text writers on criminal law and procedure is this: If the defendant upon the first charge could have been convicted of the offense in the second, then he has been in jeopardy.'
In the case of Rocco v. State, 37 Miss. 357, the Court held that, in order to render the defense autrefois convict or acquit effectual, the defendant must not only show the record of his former conviction or acquittal, but he must show by evidence aliunde the identity of the offense of which he was formerly convicted or acquitted with the offense charged in the indictment to which the defense is made. In the case of Price v. State, 104 Miss. 288, 61 So. 314, the Court held that, where a defendant charged with a crime interposes the plea of autrefois acquit — former jeopardy, the burden of proof is upon him to prove he had been acquitted upon the merits of the identical offense he is called upon to answer.
It is generally agreed that `A putting in jeopardy for one act is no bar to a prosecution for a separate and distinct act, merely because they are so closely connected in point of time that it is impossible to separate the evidence relating to them on the trial for the one of them first had. Consequently, a plea of former jeopardy will not be sustained where it appears that in one transaction two distinct crimes were committed." 226 Miss. at 40-41, 79 So.2d at 246-247.

Appellant, in contending that he was convicted of a felony-murder, relies on State, ex rel. Wikberg v. Henderson, 292 So.2d 505 (La. 1974).

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Bluebook (online)
342 So. 2d 312, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/yates-v-state-miss-1977.