Title: State of Indiana v. David Leon Jones
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 48S02-0510-PC-472
State: Indiana
Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court
Date: October 13, 2005

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT 
 
 
 
 
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE 
Steve Carter 
Susan K. Carpenter 
Attorney General of Indiana 
Public Defender of Indiana 
 
Christopher L. Lafuse 
Anne-Marie Alward 
Deputy Attorney General 
Deputy Public Defender 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
 
 
In the 
Indiana Supreme Court  
_________________________________ 
 
No. 48S02-0510-PC-472 
 
STATE OF INDIANA, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appellant (Respondent below), 
 
v. 
 
DAVID LEON JONES, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appellee (Petitioner below). 
_________________________________ 
 
Appeal from the Madison Superior Court, No. 48D03-9903-CF-55  
The Honorable Thomas Newman, Jr., Judge 
_________________________________ 
 
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 48A02-0308-PC-723  
_________________________________ 
 
October 13, 2005 
 
Shepard, Chief Justice. 
 
 
Petitioner David Leon Jones challenges a habitual offender enhancement based upon a 
handgun charge that was enhanced to a felony in the same proceeding.  According to our 
decision in Ross v. State, 729 N.E.2d 113 (Ind. 2000), the habitual enhancement cannot be used 
for this purpose.  We remand to the trial court to consider whether the habitual may be 
“repositioned” to one of the other felonies that petitioner was convicted of in the same 
proceeding. 
 
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Facts and Procedural History 
 
 
On March 11, 1999 a police officer stopped petitioner David Jones after observing him 
stagger down the street and dispose of a bottle in a nearby yard.  During the stop, Jones 
repeatedly placed his hands on his back, an action that prompted the officer to frisk him.  During 
the pat down, the officer discovered a handgun, and as he attempted to remove it, a struggle 
ensued.  Jones was able to flee, and entered a private residence where he remained until he was 
coaxed out and arrested. 
 
 
A jury found Jones guilty of battery and carrying a handgun without a license, class A 
misdemeanors, and resisting law enforcement and residential entry, class D felonies.  Jones then 
pled guilty to a charge that he had a prior felony conviction, thus elevating the handgun charge to 
a felony; he also pled to a habitual offender allegation. 
 
 
The trial court sentenced Jones to an eight-year term for the handgun possession and 
added twelve years for the habitual offender enhancement.  It ran the remaining sentences 
concurrent to the handgun sentence.  Jones appealed his conviction, and the Court of Appeals 
affirmed.  Jones v State, No. 48A05-9910-CR-453 (Ind. Ct. App. May 3, 2000).   
 
 
On May 25, 2000, twenty-two days after that decision by the Court of Appeals, we 
decided Ross v. State, 729 N.E.2d 113, 116-17 (Ind. 2000).  It held that the general habitual 
offender statute could not be used to enhance a sentence for handgun possession already 
enhanced from a misdemeanor to a felony.  In July 2000, Jones filed a pro-se petition for post-
conviction relief, later amended to include a request for relief under Ross.  The court granted 
Jones’ petition. 
 
The State appealed, and the Court of Appeals reversed, concluding in part that the 
habitual offender enhancement was proper.  State v. Jones, 805 N.E.2d 469, 474-75 (Ind. Ct. 
 
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App. 2004).  We grant transfer to address the application of Ross.  We otherwise summarily 
affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.  Ind. Appellate Rule 58(A). 
 
 
Did Jones Forfeit the Claim? 
 
 
We hold today that Ross is to be applied retroactively on collateral review to those cases 
final at the time of its announcement.  Jacobs v. State, __ N.E.2d __, __ (Ind. 2005).  The only 
question that remains is whether Jones’ failure to amend his appellate brief, petition for 
rehearing, or seek transfer to this Court following our decision in Ross, which occurred within 
thirty days of the Court of Appeals denial of his original direct appeal, constitutes waiver of that 
issue on collateral review.  The State argues that by pleading guilty to the sentencing 
enhancements, Jones effectively “gave up his right to appeal those convictions” and his right to 
the retroactive application of Ross. 
  
The purpose of post-conviction relief proceedings is to afford petitioners a forum in 
which “to raise issues unknown or unavailable to a defendant at the time of the original trial and 
appeal.”  Williams v. State, 748 N.E.2d 887, 890  (Ind. Ct. App. 2001).  Surely, at the time of his 
trial and initial appeal, Jones could not have known about, nor had available to him, a case not 
yet decided.  Moreover, as the Indiana Rules of Procedure for Post-Conviction Remedies make 
clear, post-conviction relief encompasses provisions anticipating future changes in 
circumstances.  See Ind. Post-Conviction Rule 1 §(1).  Consequently, we cannot conclude, as the 
State argues, that a voluntary guilty plea automatically precludes relief in a post-conviction 
setting when there has been a change in the substantive law.  
 
  
As for whether Jones waived any claim by failing to plead a new issue through rehearing 
or transfer, we observe that the issues in an appeal are typically fixed by the briefs tendered to 
the Court of Appeals.  Moreover, as the leading treatise in the field correctly observes, a petition 
for rehearing in the Court of Appeals must rely on the same theory as that advanced in the 
original brief.  George T. Patton, Indiana Practice: Appellate Procedure §12.1 (3d ed. 2001).  
Insisting that Jones’ lawyer on direct appeal find some heroic way to plead an authority decided 
 
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after the Court of Appeals had decided his case asks too much.  We decline to find waiver.  That 
is the extent of the good news for Jones. 
 
 
The bad news for Jones is that the State is not precluded from seeking to re-sentence him 
under the habitual offender statute, inasmuch as the trial court was entering sentences on more 
than one felony.  In similar cases, the repositioning of the general habitual finding to one of 
several felonies convictions within the same proceeding is authorized.  Greer v. State, 680 
N.E.2d 526, 527-28 (Ind. 1997)(repositioning habitual offender enhancement to another felony 
when originally enhanced felony is vacated); Tipton v. State, 765 N.E.2d 187, 190 (Ind. Ct. App. 
2002) trans. denied (upholding repositioning of habitual offender enhancement when originally 
enhanced felony is vacated and re-entered as a lesser felony by post-conviction court).  As we 
noted in Greer,  
 
a habitual offender finding is merely a jury's determination that, following a 
defendant's conviction for one or more felonies, the defendant has, in addition, 
accumulated two prior unrelated felony convictions.  In the case of a habitual 
offender proceeding following multiple convictions, the jury finding of habitual 
offender status is not linked to any particular conviction. . . . [Thus,] a habitual 
offender status following a trial resulting in multiple felony convictions is 
independent of each particular felony conviction and applies equally to all such 
convictions.      
 
680 N.E. 2d at 527 (internal citations omitted). 
 
 
Consequently, the State could seek to reposition the general habitual offender finding to 
any one of the other felony convictions Jones received as a result of the prosecution for the 
March 1999 incident. 
 
Conclusion 
 
 
We thus affirm the post-conviction court’s vacation of the general habitual offender 
sentence, but authorize the State to seek re-sentencing on its election. 
 
Dickson, Sullivan, Boehm, and Rucker, JJ., concur. 
 
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