Opinion ID: 1611371
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: was the multi-count indictment prejudicial and should it have been quashed?

Text: After Woodward was indicted on September 8, 1986, he filed a demurrer and motion to quash the indictment contending that the muliple count indictment was prejudicial and denied him due process of law. The lower court entered an order overruling and denying the demurrer and motion to quash. Woodward raises two issues in this assignment: (1) that he was prejudiced by assigning three felony crimes in a single indictment and (2) that under the merger doctrine there should be only one capital charge. Thus, this Court addresses the question. In relevant part, the state legislature has defined capital murder as follows: The killing of a human being without the authority of law by any means or in any manner shall be capital murder in the following cases: ... (e) When done with or without any design to effect death, by any person engaged in the commission of the crime of rape, burglary, kidnapping, arson, robbery, sexual battery, unnatural intercourse with any child under the age of twelve (12), or nonconsensual unnatural intercourse with mankind, or in any attempt to commit such felonies... . Miss. Code Ann. § 97-3-19(2)(e) (Supp. 1987). The Legislature recently authorized the use of single multi-count indictments as follows: (1) Two (2) or more offenses which are triable in the same court may be charged in the same indictment with a separate count for each offense if: (a) the offenses are based on the same act or transaction; or (b) the offenses are based on two (2) or more acts or transactions connected together or constituting parts of a common scheme or plan. (2) Where two (2) or more offenses are properly charged in separate counts of a single indictment, all such charges may be tried in a single proceeding. (3) When a defendant is convicted of two (2) or more offenses charged in separate counts of an indictment, the court shall impose separate sentences for each such conviction. (4) The jury or the court, in cases in which the jury is waived, shall return a separate verdict for each count of an indictment drawn under subsection (1) of this section. (5) Nothing contained in this section shall be construed to prohibit the court from exercising its statutory authority to suspend either the imposition or execution of any sentence or sentences imposed hereunder, nor to prohibit the court from exercising its discretion to impose such sentences to run either concurrently with or consecutively to each other or any other sentence or sentences previously imposed upon the defendant. Miss. Code Ann. § 99-7-2 (Supp. 1987). (Effective from and after July 1, 1986). This Court has historically disapproved of a single multiple count indictment because of the possibility of the exact complaint that Woodward makes here, the pyramiding of multiple punishments growing out of the same set of operative facts. Thomas v. State, 474 So.2d 604 (Miss. 1985). However, the cases relied upon by the defendant were decided before enactment of the multi-count indictment statute effective July 1, 1986. The Legislature has now addressed the use of the single indictment containing multi-counts, and it has stated that as a matter of state policy no objection may be validly raised to an indictment containing multi-counts if the statute is otherwise followed. Thus, this Court holds that there is no error in the State's charging of three felony counts within a single indictment since this indictment was returned after the effective date of the statute and followed its dictates. Secondly, Woodward argues that all three counts of the indictment arose out of the same incident. Under Miss. Code Ann. § 97-3-19, capital murder is murder committed during the commission of the crime of rape, kidnapping or sexual battery. The defendant contends he should have been charged in one single count of only capital murder because the provisions of the statute merged the crimes of kidnapping, sexual battery and rape into capital murder if murder was committed while the person was engaged in the commission of those underlying crimes. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the double jeopardy clause does not prohibit states from prosecuting an accused for multiple offenses in a single prosecution. Ohio v. Johnson, 467 U.S. 493, 500, 104 S.Ct. 2536, 2541, 81 L.Ed.2d 425, 434 (1984). Woodward appeals to Justice Robertson's concurring statements in Dixon v. State, 465 So.2d 1092, 1099 (Miss. 1985), and in Thomas v. State, 474 So.2d 604, 607-608 (Miss. 1985), that a defendant may be convicted and sentenced for felony murder or the felony, but not both, due to the federal and state double jeopardy clauses and the common law merger rule. Faraga v. State, 514 So.2d 295, 312 (Miss. 1987) (Robertson, J., concurring). However, the precise question here is whether the defendant may be convicted of both felony murder and another felony or felonies which were not used as a basis for the felony murder charge in a multi-count indictment arising out of the same transaction or occurrence. The courts have rarely touched on this question. However, numerous cases address the problem of a conviction for both capital murder and the underlying felony. At the most, the double jeopardy clause is violated only if the charges for the felony murder and the underlying felony are tried separately: When as here, conviction of a greater crime, murder, cannot be had without conviction of the lesser crime, robbery with firearms, the Double Jeopardy Clause bars prosecution for the lesser crime after conviction of the greater one. Harris v. Oklahoma, 433 U.S. 682, 97 S.Ct. 2912, 53 L.Ed.2d 1054 (1977) [ followed in Payne v. Virginia, 468 U.S. 1062, 104 S.Ct. 3573, 82 L.Ed.2d 801 (1984)]. In contrast to the double jeopardy protection against multiple trials, the final component of double jeopardy  protection against cumulative punishments  is designed to insure that the sentencing discretion of courts is confined to the limits established by the Legislature. Ohio v. Johnson, 467 U.S. 493, 499, 104 S.Ct. 2536, 2540-2541, 81 L.Ed.2d 425, 433 (1984). This Court has relied upon Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 304, 52 S.Ct. 180, 182, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932) to support the position that a criminal defendant may be prosecuted for more than one statutory offense arising out of a basic set of facts. Harden v. State, 460 So.2d 1194, 1199 (Miss. 1984). In the instant case, it cannot be said that kidnapping or sexual battery is the same offense as capital murder in the commission of the crime of rape. Each offense requires proof of at least one element which the other does not contain. The kidnapping and sexual battery charges would not merge because they were acts separate and distinct from the act producing the death of Rhonda Crane. Based upon Woodward's confessions, the sexual battery with which he was charged was a separate crime from the rape. The rape charge requires proof of forcible, natural sexual intercourse, Miss. Code Ann. § 97-3-65 (Supp. 1987), whereas the sexual battery charge requires proof of any sexual penetration, in this case fellatio, without the victim's consent, Miss. Code Ann. §§ 97-3-95 and 97-3-97(a) (Supp. 1987). As seen in Woodward's confessions, in the indictment and in the instructions, the rape charge and the sexual battery charge were for two separate acts. Therefore, the underlying felony of rape has not been separately charged. Any doubt as to the validity of the multi-count indictment should be dispelled by McFee v. State, 511 So.2d 130 (Miss. 1987), wherein the defendant was originally indicted for capital murder of the rape victim, but the underlying felony used was burglary. The defendant pled guilty to simple murder, and afterwards, prosecution for the rape charge was commenced. This Court stated that nothing in the capital murder indictment suggested that the defendant committed rape and that the prosecution was well within its prerogatives in seeking an indictment and trial on the additional charge of rape. Id. at 132-133. Finally, this Court has consistently rejected any claims that the underlying felony merges into the capital murder due to the language of the felony murder statute. The statutory provisions dealing with murder and the particular felonies are intended to protect different societal interests. Smith v. State, 499 So.2d 750, 753-54 (Miss. 1986); Faraga v. State, 514 So.2d 295, 302-303 (Miss. 1987). The trial court is affirmed in his denial of the motion to quash the indictment.