Title: Lane v. State

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

412 So. 2d 292 (1982)
Ex parte State of Alabama.
Re Homer Lawrence LANE
v.
STATE of Alabama.
No. 80-803.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
February 5, 1982.
*293 Charles A. Graddick, Atty. Gen., and Joseph G. L. Marston, III and Edward E. Carnes, Asst. Attys. Gen., for petitioner.
Homer Lawrence Lane, pro se.
Jack Wallace, Talladega, for respondent.
MADDOX, Justice.
The sole issue in this case is whether a defendant who entered a plea of guilty to a capital offense, and who was sentenced to life without parole, is entitled to withdraw that plea of guilty and obtain a new trial in light of Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 100 S. Ct. 2382, 65 L. Ed. 2d 392 (1980); on remand, Beck v. State, 396 So. 2d 645 (Ala.1981) (wherein the Court held that the constitutionally infirm clause in Alabama's death penalty statute, which precluded trial judges from giving lesser included offense instructions in capital cases, could be severed from the death penalty statute).
When the state filed its petition for certiorari in this Court, there was pending here a case which presented the same issue. The case was Graham v. State, 403 So. 2d 275 (Ala.Cr.App.1980); cert. quashed 403 So. 2d 286 (Ala.1981). In Graham, the Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the conviction. In this case, a majority of the Court of Criminal Appeals, 412 So. 2d 292, reversed Lane's conviction on "mandate of the Supreme Court of Alabama in Ritter v. State [403 So. 2d 154 (Ala.1981)] and authorities therein cited, and Ricardo [Recardo] Cook v. State, [(Ala.Cr.App.)] MS. 6 Div. 461, this day decided...."
In Ricardo [Recardo] Cook v. State, [MS. 6 Div. 561, June 23, 1981] (1981), a majority of the judges of the Court of Criminal Appeals were of the opinion that "... every pre-Beck death case must be reversed, regardless of the lack of evidence on lesser offenses." In reaching this conclusion, the Court of Criminal Appeals has misapplied the law announced by this Court in Beck and Ritter v. State, 403 So. 2d 154 (Ala.1981), and has failed to apply the principles of law set forth in Graham v. State, 403 So. 2d 275 (Ala.Cr.App.1980), cert. quashed 403 So. 2d 286 (Ala.1981).
This Court did not write an opinion in Graham, but the rationale upon which the judgment to quash the writ was based in Graham was that a plea of guilty voluntarily made in a case wherein the death penalty was not imposed waives all non-jurisdictional defects.[1]
*294 What was the effect of Lane's plea of guilty which was voluntarily made and upon which his judgment of conviction was based and upon which he was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole?
One of the most basic principles of the criminal law was stated in Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S. Ct. 1709, 23 L. Ed. 2d 274 (1969), where the Supreme Court opined:
395 U.S. 238, 242, 89 S. Ct. 1709, 1711, 23 L. Ed. 2d 274, 279.
It is universally held that a voluntary plea of guilty waives all non-jurisdictional defects. Lancaster v. State, 362 So. 2d 271 (Ala.Crim.App.1978), cert. den. 362 So. 2d 272 (1978); Franklin v. United States, 589 F.2d 192, 194, 195 (5th Cir. 1979), cert. den. 441 U.S. 950, 99 S. Ct. 2177, 60 L. Ed. 2d 1055.
The factual setting in this case is not dissimilar to the fact situation in Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 90 S. Ct. 1463, 25 L. Ed. 2d 747 (1970). Brady involved the Federal Kidnapping Statute which provided that only a jury could set a death penalty. Brady, charged under the Act, sought to avoid the death penalty, first, by waiving trial by jury and, when that was disallowed, by pleading guilty. The Supreme Court of the United States, a few years later, in United States v. Jackson, 390 U.S. 570, 88 S. Ct. 1209, 20 L. Ed. 2d 138 (1968), invalidated and severed the death penalty provision from the Federal Kidnapping Statute on the grounds that it tended to coerce defendants into waiving trial by jury or to plead guilty. When Brady was sentenced under the Federal Kidnapping Statute upon his plea of guilty, the Supreme Court of the United States had not invalidated the death penalty provision from the statute. The Court refused to set aside Brady's conviction. The Court opined:
397 U.S. 742, 749-750, 90 S. Ct. 1463, 1469, 25 L. Ed. 2d 747, 757.
The Court added:
397 U.S. 742, 756-757, 90 S. Ct. 1463, 1473, 25 L. Ed. 2d 747, 761.
In reaching the conclusion we reach in this case, we have considered the fact that the record indicates that Lane contended in his first petition for writ of error coram nobis that he had a defense of alibi. Lane v. State, 7 Div. 700 (Ala.Crim.App.1979), cert. den. 386 So. 2d 216 (Ala.1979).
The decision of the Court of Criminal Appeals conflicts with this Court's decision in Graham v. State, 403 So. 2d 275 (Ala.Cr. App.1980), cert. quashed 403 So. 2d 286 (Ala. 1981). It is due to be reversed and the cause remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
TORBERT, C. J., and FAULKNER, JONES, ALMON, SHORES, EMBRY, BEATTY and ADAMS, JJ., concur.
[1]  There is disagreement on this Court on whether a plea of guilty in a capital case when the death penalty is imposed also waives all non-jurisdictional defects. See dissenting opinion in Ritter v. State, 403 So.2d at p. 155. The Supreme Court of the United States has agreed to review the Ritter case. Certiorari was granted by the United States Supreme Court on October 13, 1981, ___ U.S. ___, 102 S. Ct. 376, 70 L. Ed. 2d 200 and that case was remanded to us for further consideration in light of Reed v. State, on October 26, 1981; answer of this Court on remand from the United States Supreme Court dated December 11, 1981, held that the decision in Ritter was based on federal constitutional grounds. 412 So. 2d 292 (1981).