Brian Williams v. State of Mississippi, 228 So. 3d 844

Brian Williams pleaded guilty in Sunflower County to one count of armed robbery and one count of aggravated assault; concurrent sentences of 18 years with 5 suspended (13 to serve) and five years postrelease supervision.
Williams filed multiple prior postconviction-relief (PCR) motions: first claiming speedy-trial violations; second challenging voluntariness of plea and ineffective assistance; third alleging defective indictment and ineffective assistance; each was dismissed and appeals affirmed.
Williams filed a fourth PCR motion more than three years after conviction asserting: defective indictment, trial court’s failure to review evidence before summary dismissal, violation of the right to confront/cross-examine witnesses, and ineffective assistance of counsel.
Trial court dismissed the fourth motion as successive and time-barred under the Uniform Post-Conviction Collateral Relief Act (UPCCRA); Williams appealed.
The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding the motion was both successive-writ and time-barred, that Williams failed to invoke a statutory exception or show a fundamental-rights violation, and that his ineffective-assistance claim lacked evidentiary support.

Issue	Williams's Argument	State's Argument	Held
Defective indictment	Indictment allegedly charged the victim, not him	Indictment sufficiently charged Williams as the actor; wording is imperfect but adequate	Indictment valid; claim rejected
Summary dismissal without review	Trial court erred by dismissing without reviewing submitted evidence	UPCCRA allows summary dismissal when motion, exhibits, and prior proceedings show no relief; no new evidence or meritorious claim presented	Summary dismissal proper
Right to cross-examine	Trial court failed to advise him of right to cross-examine adverse witnesses before plea	Plea colloquy showed waiver of confrontation/cross-examination; failure to enumerate that right is not a fundamental error that overcomes procedural bars	No fundamental-rights violation; procedural bars apply
Ineffective assistance of counsel	Counsel was ineffective (various complaints)	Claim is unsupported by evidence beyond Williams’s own assertions and rests on meritless underlying claims	Claim denied for lack of proof and merit

Thinnes v. State, 196 So. 3d 204 (Miss. Ct. App. 2016) (standard of review for PCR dismissals)
Carson v. State, 161 So. 3d 153 (Miss. Ct. App. 2014) (de novo review of legal conclusions)
Williams v. State, 98 So. 3d 1090 (Miss. Ct. App. 2012) (prior appeal addressing speedy-trial claim)
Williams v. State, 110 So. 3d 840 (Miss. Ct. App. 2013) (prior appeal addressing voluntariness and ineffective assistance)
Williams v. State, 158 So. 3d 1171 (Miss. Ct. App. 2014) (prior appeal addressing indictment and procedural bars)
Rowland v. State, 42 So. 3d 503 (Miss. 2010) (procedural-bar principles; mere assertions of constitutional violations insufficient)
Mosley v. State, 150 So. 3d 127 (Miss. Ct. App. 2014) (guilty plea requires advising of waiver of confrontation/right against self-incrimination)
Boyd v. State, 155 So. 3d 914 (Miss. Ct. App. 2014) (identifies limited categories of fundamental rights that overcome PCR procedural bars)
McGriggs v. State, 117 So. 3d 626 (Miss. Ct. App. 2012) (failure to inform of right against self-incrimination not a fundamental-rights violation for PCR exception)
Alford v. State, 185 So. 3d 429 (Miss. Ct. App. 2016) (affidavit-only ineffective-assistance claims are insufficient)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (U.S. 1984) (two-prong test for ineffective assistance of counsel)