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State v. Williams11/28/2001
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEAL FIRST CIRCUIT, PARISH OF EAST BATON ROUGE
We granted this writ application to consider the retroactivity and scope of LA. REV. STAT. ANN. § 15:301.1, including the limits it purports to make on State v. Jackson, 452 So. 2d 682 (La. 1984). For the following reasons, we find LA. REV. STAT. ANN. § 15:301.1 may be applied retroactively, that the Legislature's specific limitation on State v. Jackson and its progeny does not violate the defendant's constitutional right to appeal his conviction, and that the time limitations recognized in LA. REV. STAT. ANN. § 15:301.1(D) were inapplicable under the procedural posture of this case.
FACTS
On October 24, 1997, an off-duty East Feliciana Parish deputy pulled the defendant, Sidney Williams, over after he observed the defendant's car cross the center and fog lines several times. When the East Feliciana Parish deputy effected the stop in East Baton Rouge Parish, a state trooper was called to the scene. The trooper immediately detected an odor of alcohol on defendant. After the defendant performed poorly on a field sobriety test, the trooper transported the defendant to the East Baton Rouge Parish prison where he was given his rights pertaining to submission to a chemical test for intoxication. After submitting a breath sample, the intoxilizer test revealed that defendant had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.144 percent. The trooper then arrested defendant.
The State charged defendant with driving while intoxicated, third offense; earlier, defendant had entered two guilty pleas on October 3, 1995, for driving while intoxicated in December of 1994 and October of 1995. After the trial court denied defendant's motions to quash, challenging the court's jurisdiction and the prior pleas as involuntary and Boykin-defective, the defendant entered a guilty plea, reserving the right to review the trial court's rulings under State v. Crosby, 338 So. 2d 584 (La. 1976). The trial court sentenced defendant to three years at hard labor, suspended, and placed him on three years active probation specially conditioned on three years home incarceration under LA. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 894.2 "through the Criminal Justice Services."
On appeal, the First Circuit unanimously affirmed defendant's conviction, but a majority of the appellate court found patent sentencing errors because the trial court ignored penalties mandated by LA. REV. STAT. ANN. § 14:98(D), and had selected punishment not authorized by the home incarceration article. Accordingly, it vacated the defendant's sentence and remanded the matter to the trial court for re-sentencing. State v. Williams, 99-1840, slip op. at 6-7 (La. App. 1 Cir. 5/12/00). The dissenting judge believed that LA. REV. STAT. ANN. § 15:301.1 was inapplicable to a sentence imposed before the statute's effective date or after its 180-day amendment period had run. Id. at 1 (Pettigrew, J. dissenting). This Court issued a limited grant of defendant's writ application to address LA. REV. STAT. ANN. § 15:301.1 and to resolve a split among the circuits as to its retroactivity and the impact of the 180-day amendment period applied to the provisions specified in the statute. State v. Williams, 00-K-1725 (La. 5/25/01), 2001 La. LEXIS 1659.
DISCUSSION
The court of appeal's interpretation of LA. REV. STAT. ANN. § 15:301.1 places at issue the question of whether the statute could be applied retroactively and questions the authority of a reviewing court to amend or order amended an "illegally lenient" sentence when the State did not object below or complain on appeal of the leniency.
1999 LA. ACTS 94, effective August 15,
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