William Dale Watson v. State of Alabama

── William Dale Watson v. State of Alabama ── Case No.: CR-2025-0768 Court: Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama Date: March 27, 2026 Author: J. Elizabeth Kellum Category: General Rel: March 27, 2026 Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern Reporter. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-0650), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is published in Southern Reporter. Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals OCTOBER TERM, 2025-2026 _________________________ CR-2025-0768 _________________________ William Dale Watson v. State of Alabama Appeal from Limestone Circuit Court (CC-13-57.62) KELLUM, Judge. William Dale Watson appeals the circuit court's summary dismissal of what he styled as "Motion for Relief of Post Conviction and Sentencing, Pursuant to Rule 45, Alabama Rules of Appellate Procedure, Error Without Injury," in which he challenged his 2017 convictions and CR-2025-0768 sentences for 6 counts of sexual abuse of a child less than 12 years old and 4 counts of second-degree sexual abuse, involving 3 victims. (C. 3.) This Court affirmed Watson's convictions and sentences on direct appeal in an unpublished memorandum issued on June 29, 2018. Watson v. State (No. CR-17-0384), 279 So. 3d 40 (Ala. Crim. App. 2018) (table). This Court issued a certificate of judgment on July 18, 2018. Watson filed his motion on July 23, 2025, alleging, as best we can discern, that (1) the trial court committed plain error when, after it had ruled that the State could not introduce evidence of his abusing victim E.B. after E.B. had turned 12 years old, it allowed the State to introduce into evidence a statement he made to police in which he referred to incidents of abuse that occurred after E.B. was 12 years old; (2) the trial court committed plain error when it did not require the State to elect on which offense it wanted to proceed and did not give the jury a unanimity instruction; (3) the State withheld from the jury evidence indicating that he had had visitation with the victims while the charges were pending against him, which, he said, contradicted the testimony of the three victims that they had not seen him since his arrest; and (4) the trial court lacked personal jurisdiction over him because, he said, he was not 2 CR-2025-0768 arraigned in court and the waiver-of-arraignment form submitted to the trial court was forged and not signed by him. In its response, the State argued that Watson's motion was due to be denied because, it said, Rule 45, Ala. R. App. P., applies only in appellate courts and not in the circuit courts. On August 11, 2025, the same day the State filed its response, the circuit court issued an order stating: "ORDERED, Motion for Relief of Post-Conviction and Sentencing, pursuant to Rule 45, Alabama Rules of Appellate Procedure, is hereby DENIED." (C. 29.) Watson timely filed a notice of appeal. It is well settled that " '[t]he substance of a motion and not its style determines what kind of motion it is.' " Ex parte Deramus, 882 So. 2d 875, 876 (Ala. 2002) (quoting Evans v. Waddell, 689 So. 2d 23, 26 (Ala. 1997)). In his motion, Watson raised claims challenging his convictions and sentences, claims that are cognizable in a Rule 32, Ala. R. Crim. P., petition for postconviction relief. Therefore, his motion, although incorrectly labeled, was a Rule 32 petition and must be treated as such. It is equally well settled that circuit judges "are presumed to know the law and to follow it in making their decisions." Ex parte Slaton, 680 So.