Newman v. State

I dissent from the Court’s decision to quash the writ in this case. Cornelius Newman was convicted of first-degree robbery and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. In my view the trial court incorrectly permitted the Houston County prosecutor to try as a serious felony actions that should have been charged as one or more misdemeanors. By misconstruing the robbery and theft statutes, the Court of Criminal Appeals left undisturbed a serious miscarriage of justice. This theft-of-serviees case was improperly transposed into a robbery case when Newman brandished a weapon in a restaurant parking…