Title: Ex Parte Singleton

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

548 So. 2d 167 (1989)
Ex parte Cornelius SINGLETON.
(Re Cornelius Singleton v. State of Alabama).
88-453.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
July 21, 1989.
Matthew McDonald of Miller, Hamilton, Snyder & Odum, Mobile, and Stephen H. Glickman and Blair G. Brown of Zuckerman, Spaeder, Goldstein, Taylor & Kolker, Washington, D.C., for petitioner.
Don Siegelman, Atty. Gen., and Ed Carnes and Sandra J. Stewart, Asst. Attys. Gen., for respondent.
JONES, Justice.
We granted the petitioner's request for review of the Court of Criminal Appeals' "no opinion" affirmance of the trial court's denial of the petitioner's third post-conviction petition pursuant to Rule 20, Temp.R.Crim.P. We affirm.
Cornelius Singleton was convicted for the robbery and murder of a Catholic nun in a Mobile cemetery and was sentenced to *168 death. Singleton's first conviction was reversed on the authority of Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 100 S. Ct. 2382, 65 L. Ed. 2d 392 (1980), on remand, 396 So. 2d 645 (Ala.1981); and Ritter v. State, 403 So. 2d 154 (Ala.1981), on remand, 403 So. 2d 158 (Ala.1981); however, on remand, Singleton was again convicted and sentenced to death according to the Beck guidelines set out at 396 So. 2d 645. The original sentencing order in Singleton's second trial was withdrawn and replaced with an order that erroneously stated that Singleton had committed the instant offense while under a sentence of imprisonment.
Singleton's second conviction was upheld by the Court of Criminal Appeals, but that court ordered a new sentencing hearing. At the new sentencing hearing, the State conceded the error regarding Singleton's being under a sentence of imprisonment at the time this crime was committed. The trial court then entered a "Second Amended Sentencing Order" in which it weighed the aggravating and mitigating circumstances and then sentenced Singleton to death. This sentence was affirmed by the Court of Criminal Appeals, and the conviction and sentence were affirmed by this Court in Ex parte Singleton, 465 So. 2d 443 (Ala.1985). The "Second Amended Sentencing Order" read, in part, as follows:
". . . .
As quoted in Singleton v. State, 465 So. 2d 432, 441-42 (Ala.Crim.App.1984), aff'd, Ex parte Singleton, 465 So. 2d 443 (Ala.1985).
The petition here under review is the result of the denial of Singleton's third coram nobis petition to the Mobile Circuit Court, following the imposition of the death sentence. Singleton's first coram nobis petition, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel, was dismissed on the joint motion of Singleton and the State so that Singleton could file a new petition stating the "ineffective assistance of counsel" ground with more specificity. Singleton's second coram nobis petition, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel, was denied by the circuit court. Singleton's application for permission to file an out-of-time appeal from that order was denied. Singleton's requests for relief through the federal courts were also denied.
Singleton's third coram nobis petition to the Mobile Circuit Court (actually a Rule 20 petition under the Temporary Rules of Criminal Procedure) raised only one issue:
"GROUNDS FOR THE PETITION
The State moved to dismiss Singleton's petition as a procedurally barred successive petition. The circuit court dismissed the petition and issued a memorandum opinion, holding, in part, as follows:
The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, without opinion, the denial of the third coram nobis petition. After careful review of each of the cases cited in the trial court's memorandum opinion and a review of the briefs and oral arguments of counsel for the parties, we adopt the above-quoted portion of the court's memorandum opinion as the opinion of this Court. Thus, we affirm the Court of Criminal Appeals' affirmance of the trial court's judgment dismissing Singleton's Rule 20 petition as procedurally barred.
AFFIRMED.
HORNSBY, C.J., and MADDOX, SHORES, ADAMS, HOUSTON, STEAGALL and KENNEDY, JJ., concur.