ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE
Kurt A. Young Pamela Carter
Nashville, Indiana Attorney General of Indiana
Rafal Ofierski
Deputy Attorney General
Indianapolis, Indiana
KENNETH L. WHATLEY, )
Defendant-Appellant, )
)
v. ) 49S00-9608-CR-543
)
STATE OF INDIANA )
Plaintiff-Appellee. )
________________________________________________
DICKSON, J.
Following a jury trial, the defendant, Kenneth Whatley, was convicted of murder,See footnote 1
dealing in a sawed-off shotgun,See footnote
2
and carrying a handgun without a license.See footnote
3
The trial
court merged the murder and sawed-off shotgun charges and imposed concurrent
sentences, sixty years for the murder and two yearsSee footnote
4
for the handgun charge. In this direct
appeal, the defendant presents four claims: (1) he entered into a de facto guilty plea
without an advisement of his rights; (2) the trial court gave an erroneous instruction on
circumstantial evidence; (3) the trial court abused its discretion in refusing to excuse a
juror; and (4) the trial court improperly modified his sentence. We affirm in part and
remand in part.
After closing arguments, while the jury deliberated, the defendant's attorney
entered into a stipulation with the prosecutor that the defendant had a previous conviction
for carrying a handgun without a license. The offense of carrying a handgun without a
license is usually punishable as a class A misdemeanor, but, it is a class C felony in the
event of certain prior handgun convictions. Ind. Code § 35-47-2-23(c) (Supp. 1995).
Here, the defendant's prior conviction could have been used to enhance the handgun
charge in the present case from a class A misdemeanor to a class C felony. He now
asserts that the trial court erred in accepting the stipulation establishing his prior
conviction without separately advising the defendant as to various procedural rights
which would be waived by pleading guilty, as provided under the federal constitution and
state procedural law. See Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d
274 (1969); Ind. Code § 35-35-1-2(a) (1993).
The defendant presents no supporting authority wherein a factual stipulation has
been construed to constitute a guilty plea. A plea of guilty is a discrete judicial event that
not only admits factual matters but also embodies significant procedural consequences.
This stipulation, which sought only to establish certain facts, did not constitute a guilty
plea. The trial court did not err by failing to read him any advisement of rights under
either Boykin or our statute.
Next the defendant claims that the trial court erroneously instructed the jury by
failing to give a complete instruction on the use of circumstantial evidence. The
defendant argues that the trial court should have included language in its instruction to the
jury that, when proof of an element of the crime is only by circumstantial evidence, the
evidence must so unerringly and conclusively point to the guilt of the defendant as to
exclude every reasonable theory of innocence. However, by failing to tender an
instruction on the subject or to object to the instruction given, the defendant waived the
issue for appeal. Sanchez v. State, 675 N.E.2d 306, 308 (Ind. 1996). The defendant seeks
to avoid waiver by claiming that the failure to give this instruction was fundamental error.
It is not. The issue is waived. Ind.Appellate Rule 8.3 (A)(7); Williams v. State, 631
N.E.2d 485, 489 (Ind. 1994).
The defendant next contends that the trial court erred in refusing to replace a juror
when the juror became aware, during trial, that he may have known the defendant. The
defendant acknowledges that our standard of review on this issue is for abuse of
discretion. Using such a standard, we defer to the ruling of the trial court and will only
reverse when the trial court's decision not to replace a juror with an alternate places a
defendant in substantial peril. Harris v. State, 659 N.E.2d 522, 525 (Ind. 1995). Here the
juror in question equivocally informed the bailiff that the defendant's name was familiar
and that the defendant may have worked for him at some time in the past as a paper
carrier for a local newspaper. However, in response to subsequent questioning by the trial
court, the juror also stated that his opinion would not be affected one way or the other by
that potential prior relationship. The trial court denied the defendant's motion to replace
the juror with an alternate. The defendant does not establish that he was placed in
substantial peril by the trial court's refusal to replace this juror.
Finally, the defendant challenges his sentence for carrying a handgun without a
license. At the sentencing hearing the trial judge orally informed the defendant that he
was being sentenced to 365 days on this charge to run concurrently with the sentence for
murder. That would be an appropriate sentence for a class A misdemeanor. However,
the abstract of judgment sent to the Department of Corrections reflected that the
defendant was sentenced to the handgun charge as a C felony with a two year sentence.
Record at 122. The trial court did not prepare and sign a judgment as required by Indiana
Criminal Rule 15.1. Normally when a proper judgment is prepared, the court clerk then
makes a verbatim entry of such judgment in the Record of Judgments and Orders ("RJO")
and also places a summary notation of the RJO entry in the Chronological Case Summary
("CCS"). Ind.Criminal Rule 15.1. See also Ind.Trial Rule 77. In the present case, the
required separate judgment was not done, but a CCS entry exists. Although consistent
with the abstract of judgment given to the Department of Corrections, the CCS varies
from the court's oral sentencing pronouncement. The CCS entry is not an adequate
substitute for a full-text judgment signed by the court.
To resolve the inconsistency between the judge's in-court pronouncement of
sentence and the subsequent abstract of judgment, we find guidance in analogous claims
where sentence modification hearings were conducted in the absence of the defendant.
Various approaches have been taken. We have held it was harmless where the trial court
had no discretion as to the sentence and where it imposed the same sentence as at the first
sentencing where the defendant was present. Royal v. State, 272 Ind. 151, 396 N.E.2d
390 (1979). However, because the CCS entry lengthened the sentence in the present case,
we do not consider it harmless. We note that in such cases the Court of Appeals has
either stricken the sentence modification, Disney v. State, 441 N.E.2d 489, 494
(Ind.Ct.App. 1982), or remanded to the trial court for a proper sentencing. Edwards v.
State, 518 N.E.2d 1137, 1142 (Ind.Ct.App. 1988).
While either approach is available, we elect to reinstate the original in-court
sentencing and to vacate the subsequent contradictory language.
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed, except as to sentencing, and this cause
is remanded to the trial court to enter judgment consistent with its oral sentencing
pronouncement.
SHEPARD, C.J., and SULLIVAN, SELBY, and BOEHM, JJ., concur.
Converted from WP6.1 by the Access Indiana Information Network