Recent Development by Meredith S. Byars
A jury convicted Mustafa H. Muhammad of seventeen counts of identity theft on March 18, 1999. Muhammad received concurrent two-year sentences for each of the first sixteen counts, and a consecutive two-year sentence for the last conviction. The State informed Muhammad at the sentencing hearing of its intent to pursue enhanced sentencing under Louisiana's habitual offender law, and filed a habitual offender bill on the same day. The trial court subsequently tried Muhammad as a fourth felony offender, and sentenced him under Louisiana Revised Statute section 15:529.1(A)(c)(ii) to life imprisonment with no options for early release.
Muhammad filed two subsequent appeals, after each of which the appellate court reversed his conviction as a habitual offender and vacated his enhanced life sentence. On remand, the trial court tried Muhammad for a third time as a habitual offender on December 17, 2002, and issued an enhanced life sentence. On appeal, Muhammad challenged the State's application of the habitual offender law, on grounds that precedent required the proceedings to be initiated before the completion of his sentence. The appellate court supported the State's arguments that enhanced sentencing proceedings had been initiated on the date of Muhammad's original sentencing, and that the delay in completion of the proceedings had been caused by the defendant's exercise of the appellate process. However, bound by the precedents set forth in State ex rel. Williams v. Henderson and State ex rel. Glynn v. Blackburn, the appellate court held that sentence enhancement proceedings under the habitual offender statute must be completely resolved prior to the satisfaction of the defendant's original sentence and vacated the defendant's enhanced life sentence. Upon review, the Supreme Court of Louisiana held that the Williams bright line rule, requiring the completion of habitual offender proceedings prior to an offender's satisfaction of his underlying sentence, conflicts with the express language and legislative intent of the statute and reinstated the offender's enhanced life sentence as a habitual offender under Louisiana Revised Statute section 15:529.1. State v. Muhammad, 875 So. 2d 45, 56 (La. 2004).
About the Author
Meredith S. Byars. J.D. candidate 2006, Tulane University School of Law; B.A. 1997, Evergreen State College.
Citation
79 Tul. L. Rev. 1561 (2005)