Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

451 So. 2d 365

Hoppins v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided May 6, 1983

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1983-05-06

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““In all cases appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals, except those in which the death penalty has been imposed, the Court of Criminal Appeals shall consider only questions or issues presented in briefs on appeal.””

quoted by 2 later decisions, including Maye v. State, 516 So. 2d 837 - Biddie v. State

“Title 15, § 389, Code of Alabama 1940, [the immediate predecessor of § 12-22-240 ] requires that this Court must "consider all questions apparent on the record or reserved by bill of exception (now transcript of the evidence) and must render such judgment as the law demands." This statute does not mean that in a case of this kind a review will be made of questions which were not properly raised in the trial court.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 516 So. 2d 846 - Biddie v. State

Relies on 451 So. 2d 363 - Hoppins v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1983-05-06

How this case has been cited

Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently July 2015

2 federal appellate · 12 state decisions

801983199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1

¶2Glennon Hoppins filed two petitions for writ of habeas corpus, pro se, in the Circuit Court of Escambia County, Alabama. The trial court dismissed his petitions because he had failed to pay the docket fee prescribed by Code 1975, §12-19-70. The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed.451 So.2d 363.

¶3The only issue presented on appeal is whether the appellate court erred in its application of 45B, A.R.A.P. That rule states:

¶4 "In all cases appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals, except those in which the death penalty has been imposed, the Court of Criminal Appeals shall consider only questions or issues presented in briefs on appeal."

¶5Rule 45B, A.R.A.P.

¶6In its brief, the State argues that because the petitioner filed no brief and therefore raised no issues on appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in reviewing the record on appeal. We disagree.

¶7This Court approved Rule 45B, A.R.A.P. (effective January 1, 1982), which abolished the "search the record rule" set out in Code 1975, § 12-22-240. That statute stated in part that the Court of Criminal Appeals "must consider all questions apparent on the record or reserved in the circuit court." Code 1975, §12-22-240. In approving Rule 45B, this Court did not intend to restrict the authority of the Court of Criminal Appeals to consider obvious errors, but we instead intended to say that that court was no longer obligated to search the record. Any language in Rule 45B indicating otherwise is contrary to the intended effect of that provision.

¶8WRIT DENIED. *366

¶9MADDOX, FAULKNER, JONES, ALMON, SHORES, EMBRY, BEATTY and ADAMS, JJ., concur.

/451/so2d/365 · .json · Public domain