Greene v. Patterson
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In November 2015, Raymond Shane Greene was convicted of rape, sodomy, and sexual abuse of a child under 12 years of age. The trial court sentenced Greene to life imprisonment for the rape conviction, 99 years' imprisonment for the sodomy conviction, and 10 years' imprisonment for the sexual-abuse conviction. Greene had initially been tried for these offenses in August 2015, but a mistrial was declared due to the State's inadvertent failure to provide defense counsel with certain evidence. Greene was retried in November 2015 and convicted.
Following the mistrial, Greene filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him on the ground of double jeopardy stemming from alleged prosecutorial misconduct. The trial court presumably denied that motion, as Greene was retried and convicted. On July 7, 2023, Greene, acting pro se, commenced an action in the Mobile Circuit Court, arguing that his November 2015 criminal convictions were due to be set aside on double-jeopardy grounds. He accused Nicki E. Patterson, the assistant district attorney who had prosecuted him, of prosecutorial misconduct. The Mobile County District Attorney's Office, on behalf of Patterson, filed a motion to dismiss, which the circuit court granted.
The Supreme Court of Alabama affirmed the circuit court's decision. The court held that Greene could not use a rule of civil procedure to collaterally attack a criminal judgment; rather, Rule 32, Ala. R. Crim. P., provides the exclusive remedy for challenging a final judgment of conviction. Because the circuit court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to entertain Greene's civil action, it properly granted Patterson's motion to dismiss.
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