Title: Ellis v. State

State: mississippi

Issuer: Mississippi Supreme Court

Document:

485 So. 2d 1062 (1986) Charlie ELLIS v. STATE of Mississippi. Misc. No. 1751-A. Supreme Court of Mississippi. March 12, 1986. Charlie Ellis, pro se. Edwin Lloyd Pittman, Atty. Gen. by Billy L. Gore, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee. Before PATTERSON, C.J., and HAWKINS and PRATHER, JJ. HAWKINS, Justice, for the Court: Charlie Ellis has filed a motion pro se to vacate his sentence as habitual offender under Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-83 (1982). Because the state at trial failed to prove that he had actually served one year or more on his previous convictions, we sustain the motion and remand this case to the circuit court of Jefferson County. Ellis was indicted by the grand jury of Jefferson County on April 21, 1982, for the crime of burglarizing a church building, and also charged in the same indictment with recidivism under Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-83 (1972). The indictment charged Ellis was a habitual criminal under this section in that he had been convicted on February 16, 1972, of assault with intent to commit rape and sentenced to serve five years, and convicted on May 2, 1980, of burglary and larceny and sentenced to serve three years. The indictment did not allege that he had actually served any time. The jury returned a verdict of guilty on his burglary indictment. Following this, the record reveals the following proceedings before the circuit court: R.142-147. Ellis appealed and his conviction as a habitual offender was affirmed by this Court in Ellis v. State, 469 So. 2d 1256 (Miss. 1985). On appeal Ellis's attorney argued that the circuit court erred in permitting the state to amend the indictment from charging him with being a violator under Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-81 to Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-83. We rejected this argument. No contention was made by Ellis that the state had failed to prove he came under Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-83, and on his direct appeal this question was never presented. Now Ellis has filed a motion to vacate his sentence as a habitual offender under Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-83, because the state never proved, nor indeed attempted to prove in the circuit court that he had actually served one year or more on these sentences. We held in Wilson v. State, 395 So. 2d 957 (Miss. 1981), that even though a defendant is not entitled to have a jury to pass upon the issue, the state has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt all the elements required to convict an accused under Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-83. Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-83 provides: An essential ingredient of this section is that the defendant shall have served at least one year under each sentence. The state failed to meet this burden at trial. The state's proof would only have sustained a conviction under Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-81. This case, therefore, comes under Smith v. State, 477 So. 2d 191 (Miss. 1985). The motion is sustained, and the case remanded to the circuit court of Jefferson County for appropriate sentencing. REMANDED FOR PROCEEDINGS CONSISTENT WITH THIS OPINION. PATTERSON, C.J., WALKER and ROY NOBLE LEE, P.JJ., and DAN M. LEE, PRATHER, ROBERTSON, SULLIVAN and ANDERSON, JJ., concur.