Title: Ex Parte King

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

797 So. 2d 1191 (2001)
Ex parte James Lorenzo KING.
(Re James Lorenza King v. State).
1991861.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
March 2, 2001.
W. Casey Duncan, Birmingham, for petitioner.
Bill Pryor, atty. gen., and Yvonne A.H. Saxon, asst. atty. gen., for respondent.
JOHNSTONE, Justice.
On March 2, 1999, James Lorenzo King[1] was convicted of first-degree rape and *1192 first-degree sodomy, violations of §§ 13A-6-61 and 13A-6-63, Ala.Code 1975. The trial court sentenced him, as a habitual felony offender, to life without parole on both counts. See § 13A-5-9(c)(3), Ala. Code 1975. King appealed. The Court of Criminal Appeals remanded the case "to give the trial court an opportunity to clarify whether" it had complied with Rule 6.1, Ala. R.Crim. P. King v. State, 797 So. 2d 1187, 1191 (Ala.Crim.App.1999). On March 24, 2000, on return to remand, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed King's convictions and sentences in an unpublished memorandum. On June 16, 2000, on application for rehearing, the Court of Criminal Appeals withdrew its unpublished memorandum of March 24, 2000 and substituted another unpublished memorandum. By that substituted memorandum, the Court of Criminal Appeals again affirmed King's convictions and sentences and also denied King's Rule 39(k), Ala. R.App. P., motion.
King petitioned this Court for certiorari review of the affirmance of his convictions and sentences by the Court of Criminal Appeals. We granted certiorari review to determine whether the trial court denied King his right to counsel by refusing King's express reassertion of his right to counsel after the trial court had previously granted King's motion to waive counsel and to represent himself. We hold that the trial court did err in this regard and that the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in affirming King's convictions.
The record reveals the following exchange, which occurred before the trial commenced:
(R. 21-22.) Later in the trial, during King's opening statement to the jury, the topic resurfaced:
(R. 108-09.)[2] Thus, the record reveals the trial court's express rejection of the defendant's effort to withdraw his waiver of his right to counsel and to reassert his right to counsel.
Rule 6.1, Ala. R.Crim. P., provides, in pertinent part:
*1194 The Committee Comments to Rule 6.1 explain:
The trial court deprived the defendant of his right to counsel as defined by Rule 6.1 and guaranteed by the federal and state constitutions respectively. Thus, the judgment is reversed and this case is remanded to the Court of Criminal Appeals for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
MOORE, C.J., and HOUSTON, LYONS, HARWOOD, and WOODALL, JJ., concur.
SEE and BROWN, JJ., concur specially.
STUART, J., concurs in the result.
SEE, Justice (concurring specially).
This Court generally will not grant a petition for the writ of certiorari that does not comply with Rule 39, Ala. R.App. P.; however, once a petition has been granted, I believe the case is "in the breast of the Court"[3] and that this Court should address the case on its merits. Doing so is consistent with the basic principle underlying the Rules of Appellate Procedure, set out in Rule 1: "[These rules] shall be construed so as to assure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every appellate proceeding on its merits."
If King's petition for the writ of certiorari had come before me, I might not have voted to grant it.[4] Nonetheless, the Court did grant his petition and his case is now before us. I believe this Court should decide it on its merits. Having considered the merits, I concur in the opinion.
BROWN, Justice (concurring specially).
While I believe the opinion reaches the right result, I note that King's petition for the writ of certiorari failed to comply with the grounds-stating requirements of Rule 39, Ala.R.App.P. Although King asserted "conflict" as the ground for seeking the writ of certiorari, he did not allege that ground with any particularity, as Rule 39(a)(1)(D) required him to do. (At the time King filed his petition, this requirement was contained in Rule 39(c)(4), Ala. R.App. P.) Given King's failure to comply with the requirements of Rule 39, if the petition had come before me[5] I would have voted to deny it for failure to comply with the procedural rules governing petitions for certiorari review.
[1]  This defendant's name was spelled "James Lorenza King" in the Court of Criminal Appeals. He filed his certiorari petition under the name "James Lorenzo King."
[2]  Although the trial court may have been exasperated with King at this point in this long litigation, the trial court could have appointed standby counsel when the trial court granted King's motion to represent himself, as is recommended by Rule 6.1(b), Ala. R.Crim. P.
[3]  See McDavid v. United Mercantile Agencies, Inc., 248 Ala. 297, 299, 27 So. 2d 499, 500 (1946) (equating the phrase "within the breast of the court" with "within the control of the court").
[4]  I was not a member of the division of this Court that granted the petition for the writ of certiorari. See Rule 16(a), Ala. R.App. P.
[5]  I was not a member of the division of this Court that granted the petition for the writ of certiorari. See Rule 16(a), Ala.R.App.P.