Case Name: STATE of Louisiana, Appellee, v. Jamie Lee WILLIAMS, Appellant
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1976-12-13
Citations: 340 So. 2d 1382
Docket Number: No. 58585
Parties: STATE of Louisiana, Appellee, v. Jamie Lee WILLIAMS, Appellant.
Judges: SANDERS, C. J., and MARCUS, J., concur in the decree.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 340
Pages: 1382–1389

Head Matter:
STATE of Louisiana, Appellee, v. Jamie Lee WILLIAMS, Appellant.
No. 58585.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
Dec. 13, 1976.
Rehearing Denied Jan. 21, 1977.
Curtis W. Cary, Booth, Lockard, Jack, Pleasant & LeSage, Shreveport, for appellant.
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., John A. Richardson, Dist. Atty., Albert S. Lutz, Jr., Asst. Dist. Atty., for appellee.

Opinion:
TATE, Justice.
The defendant, age 16, pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated rape, La. R.S. 14:27, 42, and was sentenced to fifty years at hard labor. The sole assignment of error strongly urged is that the sentence constituted excessive punishment in violation of Article 1, Section 20, La. Constitution of 1974.
I.
The circumstances of the plea are as follows:
The defendant, then a fifteen year old boy, was picked up at about 7:30 in the evening while riding his bicycle from his cousin's house to his home. The police detained him as a suspect of some rapes in the neighborhood (one of which had occurred a week earlier). They did so because his description and bicycle resembled that of the reported rapist.
He was brought to the police station. Within thirty minutes of interrogation, he orally confessed to the present rape and to two other unsolved rapes in the neighborhood. The police officers testified that they had previously explained his Miranda rights to him and that he voluntarily waived them in confessing. The confession was reduced to writing two days later, after more interrogation the following day.
After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court overruled the defendant's motion to suppress these confessions as involuntarily obtained. Three months later, the defendant, then aged 16, pleaded guilty by way of a plea bargain.
The defendant, not admitting guilt of rape, expressly pleaded guilty in order to avoid the then-applicable death penalty. (On the other hand, the state made a showing of its strong evidence indicating guilt of the crime.)
The defendant was fully interrogated by the court for it to ascertain that the plea was free and voluntary, with full understanding of its consequences. The defendant also testified that he was satisfied with his representation by appointed counsel.
The state, in agreeing to the plea, did so as to assure the certainty of punishment, without the delays of jury trial and appellate proceedings. It did not dismiss the charges as to the other two rapes; it agreed only not to bring the defendant to trial on them "so long as he is serving a sentence on this plea until such time as the statute of limitations runs on the other indictments."
II.
A plea of guilty waives all non-jurisdictional defects in the proceedings prior to the plea, except those represented by a qualified plea conditioned upon reservation of specified pre-plea errors. State v. Crosby, 338 So.2d 584 (La.1976). Nevertheless, a complaint of sentence-excessiveness is not waived under this doctrine, since the sentence occurs subsequent to the plea.
However, the issue of the excessiveness of the penalty cannot be raised unless, at the time it is imposed, objection to it is made on the ground that it is excessive. La.C.Cr.P. art. 841; State v. Williams, 322 So.2d 177 (La.1975). See also State v. Bryant, 325 So.2d 255 (La.1976) (concurring opinion, 325 So.2d 265 at 267). After such objection (if the excessiveness is reviewable, which this court has not yet held), a hearing may be held at which the factual circumstances indicating excessiveness or not may be shown, with an opportunity for the trial court to amend its sentence accordingly, La.C.Cr.P. art. 881, if such be the case.
The issue of excessiveness is therefore not preserved for appellate review, if any, by us.
Decree
Accordingly, we affirm the conviction and sentence.
AFFIRMED.
SANDERS, C. J., and MARCUS, J., concur in the decree.
DENNIS, J., concurs in the result.
DIXON, J., concurs with reasons.
TATE, J., files additional concurring reasons.
. The other assignment urges that La.R.S. 14:42, the statutory violation for which indicted, is unconstitutional because of the mandatory death penalty thereby provided. We have held that the statute itself is constitutional, although the death penalty as then provided by it is unconstitutional. Selman v. Louisiana, - U.S. -, 96 S.Ct. 3214, 49 L.Ed.2d 1212 (1976). See decisions summarized in State v. Fletcher, 341 So.2d 340 (La.1976).