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Williams v. State12/18/2001
DATE OF TRIAL COURT JUDGMENT: 06/15/2000
TRIAL JUDGE: HON. BARRY W. FORD
COURT FROM WHICH APPEALED: ITAWAMBA COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT
NATURE OF THE CASE: CIVIL - POST CONVICTION RELIEF
TRIAL COURT DISPOSITION: POST-CONVICTION COLLATERAL RELIEF DENIED
DISPOSITION: AFFIRMED - 12/18/01
. The appellant, Steven E. Williams, in this pro se appeal, seeks appellate review of an order of the Circuit Court of Itawamba County denying his request for post-conviction relief from incarceration. Williams had originally pled guilty to a charge of grand larceny and was sentenced to serve five years. The sentence was suspended conditioned on his good behavior and completion of a substance abuse rehabilitation program. His probation was revoked in September 1997 after he was arrested in Alcorn County for driving while intoxicated.
. Williams filed several post-detention pleadings seeking release from incarceration that included a number of alternate theories for relief. The trial court consolidated these pleadings for consideration and, treating them all as requests for post-conviction relief, denied relief by an order that was dated and entered on February 8, 1999. Williams did not take an appeal from that order. Rather, on May 30, 2000, he filed another motion for post-conviction relief, in which he claimed broadly that "the trial court was without jurisdiction to impose sentence" in the grand larceny case. Alternatively, in an apparent attempt to get around the three year statute of limitations, Williams claimed that he had newly-discovered evidence concerning the propriety of his original sentence. That newly-discovered evidence was his assertion that he had a previously-undisclosed felony conviction in Alabama dating back to 1991. The trial court denied relief without hearing, finding that the motion was an impermissible successive filing raising the same issues that had been presented in the previous filings.
. It is from that order that Williams perfected the appeal that is now before this Court. We affirm the decision of the trial court.
. We have afforded Williams substantial latitude in reviewing the record and his brief in support of his claim for relief regarding the attack on the court's jurisdiction to sentence him originally. We do so in view of his status as a pro se litigant. Myers v. State, 583 So. 2d 174, 175 (Miss.1991). Even the most expansive reading of his brief, however, leaves us convinced that his claims are founded on allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel at his original plea hearing. That matter was clearly before the trial court and disposed of on the merits by the trial court's February 1999 order. Any additional attempt to raise that same issue is specifically barred by the statutory provisions relating to successive filings. Miss. Code Ann. § 99-39-27(9) (Rev. 2000); Hodgin v. State, 710 So. 2d 404, 405 ( ) (Miss.1998).
. As we have observed, Williams also claims that newly-discovered evidence now renders his original plea void. Williams makes that claim by revealing that, at the time he was sentenced in 1997, he had a previous felony conviction in Alabama arising in 1991, and that this fact deprived the trial court of authority to enter a suspended sentence. See Miss. Code Ann. § 47-7-33(1) (Rev. 2000). Whether a defendant may maintain his silence regarding a felony conviction in another jurisdiction in order to obtain a suspended sentence but then raise the issue at a later date when he deems it advantageous seems, at best, a dubious proposition. We are, in all events, content to leave the merits of that assertion for adjudication in a case where it wo
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