Title: Ex Parte Stewart
Citation: 900 So. 2d 475
Docket Number: 1031360
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: November 19, 2004

900 So. 2d 475 (2004)
Ex parte Mike STEWART.
(In re Maurice Ray Webster, Mike Stewart, and Bill Greer
v.
State of Alabama).
1031360.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
November 19, 2004.
*476 Charles H. Pullen, Huntsville, for petitioner.
Troy King, atty. gen., and Michael B. Billingsley and Stephanie N. Morman, asst. attys. gen., for respondent.
BROWN, Justice.
Mike Stewart, a former county commissioner for Marshall County, was convicted, along with Maurice Ray Webster and another former county commissioner, Bill Greer, of violating the State ethics law, Ala.Code 1975, § 36-25-1 et seq. Specifically, a jury found Stewart guilty of intentionally using his official position to unlawfully obtain personal gain by hiring Webster, a contractor, to perform road-construction work in his district in return for monetary payments from Webster, in violation of Ala.Code 1975, § 36-25-5. The trial court sentenced Stewart to five years' imprisonment and ordered him to pay a $1,000 fine.
On March 26, 2004, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Stewart's, Webster's, and Greer's convictions. Webster v. State, 900 So. 2d 460 (Ala.Crim.App.2004). On August 25, 2004, we granted Stewart's petition for certiorari review to determine whether the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in holding that the State had produced the corroborating evidence required by Ala.Code 1975, XX-XX-XXX.[1] We reverse the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals and render a judgment of acquittal for Stewart.
Stewart and Greer, also a former county commissioner for Marshall County, were convicted of violating the ethics law by using their positions as county commissioners to hire Webster to perform road-construction work in their respective districts in return for Webster's paying them a portion of the profit he made on the work. Webster was convicted of offering things of value for the purpose of influencing official action, a violation of Ala.Code 1975, § 36-25-7(a), and, as an accomplice, of using an official position or office for personal gain, a violation of Ala.Code 1975, § 36-25-5(a). The three men were tried together; the Court of Criminal Appeals consolidated their appeals and upheld their convictions. Webster, supra.
The Court of Criminal Appeals correctly stated the standard of review in this case:
Webster, 900 So. 2d  at 463.
In rejecting Stewart's argument that his conviction was based on the uncorroborated accomplice testimony of Elton Sims, who was also a former county commissioner for Marshall County, the Court of Criminal Appeals found that the corroborating evidence offered by the State was "minimally sufficient" under Alabama law to allow submission to the jury of the charge against Stewart. 900 So. 2d  at 468. We disagree.
Alabama Code 1975, § 12-21-222, provides: "A conviction of felony cannot be had on the testimony of an accomplice unless corroborated by other evidence tending to connect the defendant with the commission of the offense, and such corroborative evidence, if it merely shows the commission of the offense or the circumstances thereof, is not sufficient."
Ex parte Hunt, 744 So. 2d 851, 858-59 (Ala. 1999).
Sims, the accomplice in this case, testified at trial pursuant to a plea agreement that provided that in exchange for testifying he would plead guilty to two felony charges and be placed on five years' probation. At trial, Sims testified that Greer suggested that Sims use Webster's business, Webster Construction Company, to complete road projects in Sims's district. Greer told Sims that he "could probably do a little better with Mr. Webster than ... with the other contractors" and that when he made that statement Greer rubbed his fingers together, which Sims understood to mean that he could receive some "monetary value" if he used Webster's business for road projects in his district.
Sims soon began using Webster Construction Company on road projects in his district. Sims testified that he and Webster would set a price on the project and "then anything above the price that we set that the purchase order was made for, I would get 50 percent above that and he would keep 50 percent above that."
According to Sims, on one occasion he and Greer paid Webster for a nonexistent road-construction project. Sims testified that he submitted a requisition and work order for the nonexistent project and that he had the County issue a $3,000 check made payable to Webster, although Webster actually did no work for the money. Sims testified that he, Webster, and Greer then split the $3,000.
Sims also testified that, after he had used Webster Construction Company for road-construction projects in his district for a period of time, Greer approached him and told him to start using the name Bill Runyans instead of Webster on requisition orders, because Webster's name had appeared too often in the County's computer records. Sims thus began using the name Runyans, but the projects were still being completed by Webster Construction Company and the money for the projects was still being paid to Webster.
Sims's testimony never directly implicated Stewart in the payment scheme involving Sims, Greer, and Webster. As the Court of Criminal Appeals noted:
Webster, 900 So. 2d  at 464-65 (footnote omitted). Moreover, at trial, Sims was asked the following questions:
Sims also testified about a conversation between Greer, Stewart, and himself. In that conversation, Stewart asked Sims and Greer about using Webster's construction services:
While Sims's testimony tends to establish that he, Greer, and Webster had engaged in a scheme to award road-construction projects and then to receive money from the contractor for doing so, Sims's testimony does not appear to establish that Stewart was in any way guilty of that wrongdoing.
To corroborate Sims's testimony, the State presented evidence of Marshall County's normal procedure for requesting bids from and paying outside vendors. Mary Susan McCormick, an accountant for the County, testified that a commissioner who wants to make a purchase for or have work performed in his district first submits a purchase requisition. Once the purchase or work is completed, the vendor mails an invoice to the County for the purchase or the work performed; the County then issues a computer-generated check payable to the vendor and mails the check to the vendor as payment. McCormick testified, however, that she issued several checks for Sims and Greer by using a typewriter rather than the computer, even though the County officials did not like to issue typewritten, as opposed to computer-generated, checks. According to McCormick, most of the checks she had *480 typewritten for Sims and Greer were payable to Webster Construction Company, and Sims and Greer would personally deliver an invoice from Webster Construction Company and request that she immediately issue a check for the amount of the invoice. Only once did Stewart ask McCormick to type a check; it was a check made out to Webster Construction Company and it is undisputed that the check replaced a computer-generated check previously sent to Webster Construction Company that had apparently been lost in the mail. McCormick further testified that the payments to Webster on the sole project for which Stewart used Webster Construction Companythe Saylor's Gap Road projectwere made in "the correct way." While McCormick's testimony tends to prove that Sims and Greer bypassed the normal procedures in securing checks used to pay Webster, it does not tend to establish that Stewart engaged in any unusual activity with regard to the County's check-writing procedures nor does it otherwise corroborate an inference, if any could be formed, from Sims's testimony that Stewart was involved in a scheme to inflate the cost of road projects and share in the profits.
The State also presented as corroborative evidence testimony regarding four construction projects on which Webster Construction Company had performed the work. As the Court of Criminal Appeals notes, the State presented testimony from an engineer for Marshall County, as well as an engineer employed with the Alabama Department of Transportation. Those engineers testified that the cost of the four projects, including the Saylor's Gap Road project, should have been less than what Webster Construction Company charged the County for those projects. However, on cross-examination, the engineer for Marshall County revealed that, insofar as his testimony regarding the Saylor's Gap Road project was concerned, the equipment-rental rate schedule upon which he based his estimate of the cost of the project was over five years old at the time he made his estimate and was no longer accurate. Moreover, the engineer had failed to include the costs associated with work performed on Guntersville Dam Road, which was part of the Saylor's Gap Road project. Finally, all of the estimates provided by the engineers differed, and none took into account a profit for the contractor. Thus, the State's evidence regarding the actual cost of the Saylor's Gap Road project was, at best, incomplete.
The Court of Criminal Appeals also noted that the State presented as corroborating evidence the testimony of several County employees:
*481 Webster, 900 So. 2d  at 466. Waldrop also testified, however, that the Saylor's Gap Road project needed to be completed quickly to take advantage of the cold weather favorable to the paving process. Waldrop testified that to complete the process in a timely manner an outside contractor was needed. Moreover, accordingly to Waldrop, Webster's crew worked longer hours and more quickly than did the County workers. Additionally, Waldrop testified that Webster Construction Company's equipment was used to load chert at the chert pit because the County's bulldozer was not functioning when the chert needed to be loaded.[2] Finally, Waldrop testified that at the time he noticed nothing suspicious in having an outside contractor perform the work at the Saylor's Gap Road project.
Based on the evidence before us, we conclude that Sims's testimony failed to establish that Stewart violated the State ethics law. Instead, Sims was unequivocal in his statement that he had no knowledge whatsoever of any participation by Stewart in the scheme in which Sims, Greer, and Webster were participating. However, even if this Court were to conclude that Sims's testimony implicated Stewart in the scheme to funnel work to Webster in return for a payment, as the Court of Criminal Appeals found, based on the foregoing we hold that the evidence corroborating Sims's testimony was insufficient under Ala.Code 1975, § 12-21-222. The corroborating evidence in this case did not tend to connect Stewart with the criminal activity that occurred in this case. See Hunt, supra. The Court of Criminal Appeals erred in affirming Stewart's conviction. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals and render a judgment of acquittal in favor of Stewart.
REVERSED AND JUDGMENT RENDERED.
NABERS, C.J., and SEE, HARWOOD, WOODALL, and STUART, JJ., concur.
JOHNSTONE, J., concurs specially.
HOUSTON and LYONS, JJ., concur in the result.
JOHNSTONE, Justice (concurring specially).
I concur fully in the main opinion. I write specially only to add that, even absent the application of § 12-21-222, Ala. Code 1975, the State failed to prove a prima facie case against the defendant Stewart.
LYONS, Justice (concurring in the result).
Because I do not consider the State's evidence, as set forth below, sufficient to support Stewart's conviction, I concur in the result.
According to the evidence, Commissioners Bill Greer and Elton Sims had done business with Webster Construction Company, and Maurice Webster had paid each of them a percentage of the profits resulting from that business. Sims testified that Greer, in his presence, told Stewart that, "he (Greer) always got Mr. Webster and took him out to his projects and let him see what needed to be done and come up with a price." This testimony, standing alone, is not sufficient to establish any wrongdoing on Stewart's part. Further, there is nothing in Sims's account of Greer's statement to Stewart about Greer's receiving a kickback after Webster *482 was awarded the contract. Perhaps Greer did not want Stewart to know about his illegal acts.
The only contact involving Webster and Stewart took place after several transactions between Webster and Sims, on the one hand, and Webster and Greer, on the other, had taken place. Sims also testified that Webster told him that the way Webster "dealt with the County" was to set a price and then share any profit over that price with the commissioner who had gotten them the job. What is meant by "the County?" Nothing in Sims's testimony regarding Webster's description of the way he did business with the County indicates when Webster made the statements. For all that appears, Webster commented about setting a price and sharing the overage when he did business with "the County" before the lone transaction between Webster and Stewart and thus was referring in that comment to those transactions involving only Commissioners Sims and Greer. In order to affirm Stewart's conviction, I would have to make the double assumptions (1) that this conversation took place after the lone transaction between Webster and Stewart and (2) that that transaction, like those with Commissioners Sims and Greer, involved a payment by Webster to Stewart. Permitting the jury to make those assumptions was error because this evidence against Stewart did not sufficiently satisfy the State's burden of proof.
HOUSTON, J., concurs.
[1]  Webster and Greer filed separate petitions for the writ of certiorari. On August 13, 2004, this Court denied Webster's petition (case no. 1031357) and Greer's petition (case no. 1031369), both without an opinion.
[2]  Waldrop testified that the County's bulldozer, which was a military-surplus model, was out of commission for "quite some time" because it was more difficult to repair than a commercial model.