 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Butler v. State10/13/2004
r for driving while intoxicated, before questioning her about the homicide. The State filed no other charge against Dunten until eighteen months later, when the State filed an information charging her with second-degree murder.
Dunten moved to dismiss the murder charge on the grounds that the homicide arose from the same criminal episode as the DWI charge, and thus the State had violated Criminal Rule 45 by failing to bring her to trial within 120 days of commencing the prosecution of the DWI charge. We ruled that separate charges do not arise from the same criminal episode merely because they occurred close to each other temporally.
Rather, "some additional similarity between the initial and later charges - either a causal link or a close evidentiary or elemental nexus - has justified the finding of a single criminal episode."
We ruled that the DWI charge and the second-degree murder charge did not arise from the same criminal episode because the homicide charge was not causally related to the DWI charge, and because the evidence necessary to establish the DWI charge differed greatly from the evidence necessary to establish the murder charge.
We considered a similar issue in Pitka v. State. A state trooper arrested Pitka for criminal trespass and criminal mischief after responding to a domestic disturbance call. When the trooper searched Pitka after the arrest, the trooper found cocaine. The State filed a complaint charging criminal trespass and criminal mischief the next day, but the grand jury did not indict Pitka for cocaine possession until six months later. Pitka moved to dismiss, citing Criminal Rule 45(c)(3), but the superior court denied the motion. Considering the facts of Pitka's case, we upheld the superior court's ruling that there was no Rule 45 violation because there was no nexus between Pitka's criminal trespass and criminal mischief charges on the one hand, and his cocaine possession on the other hand besides the crimes' simultaneity.
Here, Butler failed to plead facts that showed that the 1996 Juneau misdemeanor charges and the 1998 felony misconduct involving weapons charge were related causally, or that there was an evidentiary or elemental nexus between his 1996 charges and the 1998 weapons misconduct charge. In the superior court, Butler did not attempt to show that the elements of Juneau's misdemeanor charges (assault and reckless driving) had commonality with the elements of the State weapons misconduct charge.
Nor did Butler attempt to point out a nexus between the charges with any reference to the analysis from Dunten and Pitka.
Juneau did not have to prove that Butler had a felony conviction to prove its charges. Nor was Butler's knowing possession of a concealable firearm an element of the Juneau charges. At best, it appears that Butler pleaded only a temporal proximity between the Juneau charges and the State charge, and a temporal proximity alone does not establish a single criminal episode for purposes of Criminal Rule 45(c)(3). Thus, Butler did not plead facts establishing a nexus between the 1996 charges and the 1998 charge.
We agree with Judge Thompson that Butler's application did not plead facts that would show that a Rule 45 motion to dismiss would have been granted if it had been brought. Therefore, Butler failed to plead a prima facie case that his trial attorney was incompetent for failing to file a Rule 45 motion.
Conclusion
The judgment of the superior court is AFFIRMED.
Page 1 2 3 Alaska DUI Attorneys
DUI Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|