David William Kent, Jr. v. State of Mississippi
David William Kent, Jr. v. State of Mississippi
Opinion
¶ 1. David Kent filed a motion for post-conviction relief alleging that the circuit court lacked a factual basis to accept his guilty plea. The circuit court dismissed Kent's PCR motion as time-barred, and he appeals. We affirm the dismissal as Kent has failed to present an adequate record to support his contentions.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
¶ 2. The circuit court may summarily dismiss a PCR motion without an evidentiary hearing "[i]f it plainly appears from the face of the motion, any annexed exhibits and the prior proceedings in the case that the movant is not entitled to any relief."
¶ 3. Our review of the summary dismissal of a PCR motion, a question of law, is de novo.
DISCUSSION
¶ 4. At the outset, we note that the Mississippi Uniform Post Conviction Collateral Relief Act requires that motions for post-conviction relief contain the "identity of the proceedings in which the petitioner was convicted."
See
Walker v. State
,
¶ 5. After Kent's PCR motion was filed, the circuit court identified it with Hinds County cause number 12-0-403. The circuit court found Kent's PCR petition time-barred because the conviction order in that cause number had been filed on March 7, 2013, more than three years prior to the filing of the PCR motion.
See
¶ 6. Kent repeats his ambiguous identification of the underlying offense and the inconsistent date of the conviction in his brief on appeal, but he does not acknowledge or discuss the inconsistencies with the sentencing order attached by the circuit court to its judgment; Kent appears to accept that the circuit court addressed the correct underlying conviction.
¶ 7. Although the dates of the judgments and the identity of the offenses do not match, we acknowledge that the sentencing order attached by the circuit court to the judgment is probably the one Kent intended to challenge in his PCR motion. Still, the record is wholly inadequate to support Kent's claims-it does not contain the indictment, the plea petition, or a transcript of the plea colloquy. As to the transcript, Kent alleges that the court reporter could not produce one, but that claim is not substantiated in the record. And even if Kent could not obtain a transcript, remedies were available through Mississippi Rule of Appellate Procedure 10, but they were not utilized here.
See
Brooks v. State
,
¶ 8. While this Court often orders supplementation of the record in post-conviction cases, on our own motion, we decline to do so in this instance for two reasons. First, Kent-unlike most post-conviction petitioners-is represented by counsel. And, second, his PCR motion failed to identify the underlying proceedings with adequate certainty.
¶ 9. The circuit court's judgment is presumed to be correct.
See
Birkhead v. State
,
¶10. AFFIRMED.
LEE, C.J., IRVING AND GRIFFIS, P.JJ., BARNES, CARLTON, WILSON, GREENLEE, WESTBROOKS AND TINDELL, JJ., CONCUR.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.