Thornton v. State (Majority, with Dissenting)
Annotate this CaseAfter a bench trial, Appellant was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. The Supreme Court reversed and dismissed Appellant’s conviction for capital murder, holding that the evidence could not sustain the charge of capital murder. Thereafter, the State did not refile a murder charge against Appellant. Rather, the State filed a “Motion for Court of Consider Lesser-Included Offenses.” The circuit court granted the motion, ruling that the evidence from the bench trial was sufficient to prove that Appellant committed first-degree murder. The court then sentenced Appellant as a habitual offender to forty years’ imprisonment for the first-degree murder. The Supreme Court reversed and dismissed, holding that because the conviction was reversed and dismissed, the circuit court did not have jurisdiction to hear the State’s “Motion for Court of Consider Lesser-Included Offenses.”
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