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• Title: State Missouri v. Phillip K. Harris
• Author : Supreme Court of Missouri Division 2
• Release Date : January 12, 1964
• Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 73 KB

Description

On January 18, 1956, when Louise Okee, now described by the appellant Phillip K. Harris as "his lady friend," attempted to
terminate their illicit relationship (he was then married and the father of seven children), he beat her to death with "a
steel car jack." The circumstances in which the appellant Harris beat Louise to death, an irrefutable fact that he did not
deny either then or now, were such that he was first charged with murder in the first degree. Subsequently an amended information
was filed charging the appellant with murder in the second degree, whereupon, after advising with court-appointed counsel
(two very competent lawyers), he entered a plea of guilty and was sentenced to fifty years' imprisonment. Seven years later,
December 13, 1963, the appellant instituted this rather unique two-pronged proceeding to vacate the 1956 sentence and to permit
him to withdraw his original plea of guilty. Essentially the proceeding is one to vacate the sentence under rule 27.26 on
the ground or for the reason that there was "manifest inJustice" in the acceptance of his plea of guilty (Sup. Ct. Rule 27.25)
in 1956 and therefore, he urges, the judgment of conviction on his plea of guilty should now be set aside. The trial court
summarily denied the motion and Harris has appealed. The appellant's complaints are that he was "deprived of substantive procedural due process of law" in that by reason of his
comparative illiteracy (a third grade education) there was no "thorough determination of appellant's capabilities to adequately
and clearly understand the law of the case." This general abstraction means, so he says, that "he was not advised of the various
defenses available to him." But in this connection he is not speaking of the defenses to the charge of second degree murder,
he first objects that the charge of first degree murder was reduced to second degree by striking from the information the
word "deliberately." He intimates that, unknown to him, the change in the information resulted from "some kind of agreement
between defense counsel and the prosecution." Therefore, it is said, that he had a right to know but was not advised that
he was not pleading guilty to murder in the first degree. In this connection he urges that he should have been advised of
the reduction in the degree of the offense, "because there are far more defenses in first degree murder than in a second degree
one." As to these rights he says that "no one advised him that he forfeited more rights by pleading guilty than he gained
by so pleading: his act could possibly have been due to temporary insanity; to provocation, to fear of immediate danger;
no one advised appellant he could have relied on the doctrine of self-defense; that there could have been a jury finding of
manslaughter, a verdict for which a jury could have found." And finally it is stated that "the court did not advise appellant
what charge he was being sentenced for. In effect, he was not lawfully advised of the nature of the charge he was being sentenced
for." It is urged that these circumstances and this case fall within and are governed by State v. Williams, Mo., 361 S.W.2d
772 and Williams v. Kaiser, (1944) 323 U.S. 471; 65 Sup.Ct. 363, 89 L.Ed. 398, and that as in the Williams case the present
judgment dismissing appellant's motion should be reversed.

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