Ricky Harris v. State of Tennessee

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF TENNESSEE

AT KNOXVILLE

January 6, 2009 Session

RICKY HARRIS v. STATE OF TENNESSEE

Appeal by Permission from the Court of Criminal Appeals

Circuit Court for Carter County

No. S16982 R. Jerry Beck, Judge

No. E2005-00566-SC-R11-PC - Filed January 14, 2010

We granted the State’s appeal to determine whether the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in

reversing the trial court’s summary dismissal of the petition for writ of error coram nobis and

remanding for a determination of whether due process requires tolling of the one-year statute

of limitations. We conclude that the delay in seeking coram nobis relief is unreasonable as

a matter of law under the circumstances of this case, and therefore due process considerations

do not preclude application of the statute of limitations to bar the petition. Accordingly, we

reverse the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals and reinstate the judgment of the trial

court dismissing the petition.

Tenn. R. App. P. 11 Appeal by Permission;

Judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals Reversed;

Judgment of the Trial Court Reinstated

J ANICE M. H OLDER, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which G ARY R. W ADE and

S HARON G. L EE, JJ., joined. W ILLIAM C. K OCH, J R., J., filed a separate opinion concurring

in part and concurring in result, in which C ORNELIA A. C LARK, J., joined

Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter; Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General;

and Mark A. Fulks, Senior Counsel; Joe Crumley, District Attorney General; and Kenneth

C. Baldwin, Assistant Attorney General, for the appellant, State of Tennessee.

Sonya Slaughter Helm, Bristol, Tennessee, for the appellee, Ricky Harris.

OPINION

Facts and Procedural History

On March 1, 1988, a jury found the petitioner, Ricky Harris, guilty of first degree

murder. On May 4, 1988, the trial court denied Mr. Harris’s motion for a new trial and

entered a judgment sentencing him to life imprisonment. His conviction and sentence were

affirmed on direct appeal. State v. Harris, No. 85, 1990 WL 171507 (Tenn. Crim. App. Nov.

8, 1990), perm. app. denied, (Tenn. Feb. 4, 1991). In 1992, Mr. Harris sought post-

conviction relief, alleging that his counsel were ineffective and that the State withheld

exculpatory evidence. The trial court’s denial of post-conviction relief was affirmed on

appeal. Harris v. State, No. 03C01-9611-CR-00410, 1998 WL 191441 (Tenn. Crim. App.

Apr. 23, 1998), perm. app. denied, (Tenn. Dec. 7, 1998).

On December 10, 1998, just three days after this Court denied Mr. Harris’s application

for permission to appeal, Mr. Harris filed a motion to reopen his post-conviction petition,

alleging that the State had failed to disclose the identity of a purported alibi witness named

Corrine Hampton. Mr. Harris asserted that he became aware of Ms. Hampton when he

received an anonymous letter in response to an August 1998 newspaper advertisement

seeking information about his case. The letter stated that Ms. Hampton told an unidentified

officer that a man resembling Mr. Harris helped her when she had car trouble on September

8, 1987, at approximately 8:25 a.m. She saw nothing suspicious inside his car or trunk and

followed him to the car dealership where he worked. These events allegedly occurred during

the time when Mr. Harris was murdering the victim and disposing of her body according to

the State’s theory of the crime. The trial court denied the motion to reopen, ruling that the

motion did not state a cognizable ground for reopening the post-conviction petition.1

On appeal, a majority of the Court of Criminal Appeals sua sponte treated the motion

to reopen as a petition for writ of error coram nobis and remanded the case for a hearing on

the merits. After granting the State’s application for permission to appeal, this Court held

that Mr. Harris did not state a cognizable ground for reopening his post-conviction petition.

Harris v. State, 102 S.W.3d 587, 591 (Tenn. 2003). A majority of the Court held that the

Court of Criminal Appeals erred in sua sponte treating the motion to reopen as a petition for

writ of error coram nobis, although members of the majority disagreed on the reasoning used

to reach this conclusion. Id. at 594. Two members of the Court dissented, stating that Mr.

Harris’s motion asserted a prima facie case for coram nobis relief and raised grounds

1

Following the trial court’s denial of his motion to reopen, Mr. Harris filed Ms. Hampton’s affidavit

containing the alleged exculpatory statement. The affidavit states that Ms. Hampton had car trouble in

September 1987 but does not indicate the exact date of the incident.

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requiring that the one-year coram nobis statute of limitations be tolled under due process

principles. Id. at 596 (Anderson, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

On March 11, 2004, almost eleven months after this Court’s opinion, Mr. Harris filed

a petition for writ of error coram nobis. He based the petition on two items of purportedly

newly discovered evidence. The first item related to the potential alibi witness, Ms.

Hampton. Mr. Harris asserted that he did not become aware of the exculpatory nature of the

evidence from Ms. Hampton until his private investigator contacted her in 1998. The second

item related to someone named “Bill” who in June 1991, approximately three years after the

trial, had sent the District Attorney General letters confessing to the murder and absolving

Mr. Harris. Although the “Bill” letters had been given to Mr. Harris’s trial counsel in June

1991, Mr. Harris contended that he did not obtain evidence proving the exculpatory nature

of the letters until he received a handwriting expert’s June 2002 report identifying their

author.

The trial court summarily dismissed the petition for writ of error coram nobis. The

trial court concluded that Mr. Harris was not entitled to coram nobis relief because his claims

did not involve newly discovered evidence because he knew of Ms. Hampton at the time of

his trial and the “Bill” letters were an issue as early as the original post-conviction

proceeding. The trial court also ruled that the petition was barred by the statute of

limitations.

The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the trial court’s dismissal of the petition. The

intermediate appellate court remanded the case for a hearing to determine: (1) whether due

process considerations require tolling of the statute of limitations; (2) whether the alibi

evidence is credible; and (3) whether the third-party confession evidence is newly

discovered.

We granted the State’s application for permission to appeal.

Analysis

A proceeding in the nature of a writ of error coram nobis is available to convicted

defendants in criminal cases. Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-26-105(a) (2006). Whether to grant or

deny a petition for writ of error coram nobis on its merits rests within the sound discretion

of the trial court. State v. Vasques, 221 S.W.3d 514, 527-28 (Tenn. 2007). Coram nobis

claims may be based on newly discovered evidence:

Upon a showing by the defendant that the defendant was without fault in

failing to present certain evidence at the proper time, a writ of error coram

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nobis will lie for subsequently or newly discovered evidence relating to

matters which were litigated at the trial if the judge determines that such

evidence may have resulted in a different judgment, had it been presented at

the trial.

Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-26-105(b).

Coram nobis claims are subject to a one-year statute of limitations. Tenn. Code Ann.

§ 27-7-103 (2000) (“The writ of error coram nobis may be had within one (1) year after the

judgment becomes final . . . .”). The statute of limitations is computed from the date the

judgment of the trial court becomes final, either thirty days after its entry in the trial court if

no post-trial motions are filed or upon entry of an order disposing of a timely filed, post-trial

motion. Mixon v. State, 983 S.W.2d 661, 670 (Tenn. 1999). Whether a claim is barred by

an applicable statute of limitations is a question of law, which we review de novo. Brown

v. Erachem Comilog, Inc., 231 S.W.3d 918, 921 (Tenn. 2007). We construe the coram nobis

statute of limitations consistent with the longstanding rule that persons seeking relief under

the writ must exercise due diligence in presenting the claim. Mixon, 983 S.W.2d at 670. The

State bears the burden of raising the bar of the statute of limitations as an affirmative defense.

Harris, 102 S.W.3d at 593.

In this case, the State appropriately raised the statute of limitations in the trial court.

Id.; see Sands v. State, 903 S.W.2d 297, 299 (Tenn. 1995). The trial court ruled that the

petition was time-barred. The State has not relied on the statute of limitations in this Court,

arguing instead that the trial court properly denied coram nobis relief on the merits. This

Court is not compelled, however, to accept a concession by the State in this regard. Barron

v. State Dept. of Human Serv., 184 S.W.3d 219, 223 (Tenn. 2006). The threshold question

for determination, therefore, is whether Mr. Harris’s petition is barred by the statute of

limitations.

When a petitioner seeks a writ of error coram nobis based on newly discovered

evidence of actual innocence, due process considerations may require tolling of the statute

of limitations. Workman v. State, 41 S.W.3d 100, 101 (Tenn. 2001). These due process

considerations refer to the principle that “before a state may terminate a claim for failure to

comply with procedural requirements such as statutes of limitations, due process requires that

potential litigants be provided an opportunity for the presentation of claims at a meaningful

time and in a meaningful manner.” Burford v. State, 845 S.W.2d 204, 208 (Tenn. 1992).

Whether due process considerations require tolling of a statute of limitations is a mixed

question of law and fact, which we review de novo with no presumption of correctness. See

Vaughn v. State, 202 S.W.3d 106, 115 (Tenn. 2006).

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To determine whether due process requires tolling, a court must weigh the petitioner’s

interest in obtaining a hearing to present a later-arising ground for relief against the State’s

interest in preventing stale and groundless claims. Workman, 41 S.W.3d at 103. In

balancing these interests, a court should utilize a three-step analysis:

(1) determine when the limitations period would normally have begun to run;

(2) determine whether the grounds for relief actually arose after the limitations

period would normally have commenced; and (3) if the grounds are “later-

arising,” determine if, under the facts of the case, a strict application of the

limitations period would effectively deny the petitioner a reasonable

opportunity to present the claim.

Sands v. State, 903 S.W.2d 297, 301 (Tenn. 1995).

In this case, the limitations period normally would have begun to run on June 3, 1988,

thirty days after the trial court denied Mr. Harris’s motion for a new trial. Therefore, the

statute of limitations would have expired on June 4, 1989, almost fifteen years before Mr.

Harris filed his petition for writ of error coram nobis.

The second step in the analysis requires a determination of whether Mr. Harris’s

grounds for relief—the alibi evidence and the third-party confession evidence—actually

arose after the limitations period normally would have commenced. The factual allegations

relevant to whether these grounds are later-arising are subject to considerable dispute. See

Harris, 102 S.W.3d at 596 (observing that the factual allegations relevant to the tolling issue

were subject to considerable dispute) (Holder, J., concurring).2 If tolling depended only on

whether the grounds were later-arising, we would agree with the Court of Criminal Appeals

that an evidentiary hearing would be necessary to resolve the issue.

The Court of Criminal Appeals did not address the third step in the analysis, however,

which requires a determination of whether Mr. Harris was given a reasonable opportunity to

present his claims. On two prior occasions, we have examined the reasonableness of delayed

filings based on later-arising exculpatory evidence claims. In Workman, a capital case, the

2

Discussion of tolling in Harris was limited to the purported alibi evidence obtained in response to

Mr. Harris’s August 1998 newspaper advertisement. A plurality of the Court, in dicta, and two dissenting

members of the Court disagreed as to whether the claim was later-arising. Compare Harris, 102 S.W.3d at

594 n.10 (plurality opinion) (“[T]he proof upon which Harris relies does not appear to state a prima facie

later-arising claim under the writ of error coram nobis statute.”) with id. at 602 (Anderson, J., concurring in

part and dissenting in part) (“I do not agree that the petitioner has failed to assert a later-arising issue or that

the petitioner’s liberty interests are diminished as concluded by the majority.”). As the motion to reopen was

filed shortly after the evidence was obtained, subsequent delay in filing was not an issue.

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petition for writ of error coram nobis was filed approximately thirteen months after the

petitioner obtained the evidence at issue. We concluded that the time within which the

petition was filed did not exceed the reasonable opportunity afforded by due process.

Workman, 41 S.W.3d at 103. We subsequently applied this analysis in the context of a post-

conviction capital case. See Sample v. State, 82 S.W.3d 267 (Tenn. 2002). In Sample, the

petitioner did not raise his claim that the State withheld exculpatory evidence until sixteen

months after he obtained the evidence. The Court noted that the applicable post-conviction

statute of limitations was three years and that there was no specific statutory period for

raising later-arising claims. Id. at 276 n.13. We found no basis for holding that the sixteen-

month delay “in and of itself was unreasonable.” Id. at 276.

In applying the due process balancing analysis, we have declined to create a specific

limitations period for later-arising claims. Id. at 273 n.8. Moreover, we have not previously

attempted to set an outer limit of reasonableness for delayed filings based on such claims.

This case presents an opportunity to clarify when delay in seeking coram nobis relief may be

unreasonable as a matter of law, keeping in mind that each case must stand on its own facts.3

Mr. Harris alleged in his petition for writ of error coram nobis that he did not become

aware of the exculpatory nature of the alibi evidence until his private investigator contacted

Ms. Hampton in 1998. Mr. Harris further alleged that he did not obtain evidence proving the

exculpatory nature of the third-party confession until he received a handwriting expert’s June

2002 report identifying the author of the “Bill” letters. Even if we accept as true all of Mr.

Harris’s allegations regarding these two items of evidence, Mr. Harris could have asserted

a coram nobis claim as early as 1998 with regard to the alibi evidence and as early as June

2002 with regard to the third-party confession evidence. Mr. Harris filed his petition for writ

of error coram nobis on March 11, 2004. This represents a delay of approximately six years

with regard to the alibi evidence and approximately twenty-one months with regard to the

third-party confession evidence.

Moreover, we need not consider Mr. Harris’s previous attempt to present the alibi

evidence in a motion to reopen his post-conviction petition in determining whether he has

been denied a reasonable opportunity to assert a claim. No statute in Tennessee nor tolling

rule developed at common law provides that the time for filing a cause of action is tolled

during the period in which a litigant pursues a related but independent cause of action. In

1998, when Mr. Harris filed his motion to reopen his post-conviction petition based on newly

discovered evidence, he chose not to file a petition for writ of error coram nobis. On appeal

3

If there is a reasonable doubt as to the applicability of the procedural bar and the surrounding

circumstances are not adequately developed, prudence may warrant an evidentiary hearing. In the words of

Benjamin Franklin, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

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to the Court of Criminal Appeals from the trial court’s denial of his motion to reopen, Mr.

Harris stated that he “never intended to file a writ of error coram nobis in this case.” Harris,

102 S.W.3d at 595 (Holder, J., concurring). Despite his claim alleging newly discovered

evidence, he further stated that “the writ of error coram nobis doesn’t apply to the case at bar

. . . .” Id.

Unlike other cases in which the statute of limitations has been tolled because of due

process concerns, the opportunity to assert a coram nobis claim was entirely within Mr.

Harris’s control after 1998 with regard to the alibi evidence and after June 2002 with regard

to the third-party confession evidence. Nothing prevented Mr. Harris from filing a separate

coram nobis action while his motion to reopen was pending. Cf. Burrell v. State, No.

E1999-02762-CCA-R3-PC, 2001 WL 15792, at *2 (Tenn. Crim. App. Jan. 8, 2001), perm.

app. denied, (Tenn. May 21, 2001) (holding that due process does not require tolling the post-

conviction statute of limitations while a petition for certiorari in the direct appeal is pending

before the United States Supreme Court because the defendant can seek post-conviction

relief while the petition for certiorari is pending).

The State’s appeal to this Court on February 4, 2002, in the proceeding in which Mr.

Harris sought to reopen his post-conviction petition put Mr. Harris on notice that he should

file a coram nobis claim to preserve this legal remedy. He chose to wait until March 11,

2004, twenty-five months after the State’s appeal and eleven months after this Court’s

opinion, to assert such a claim. A majority of this Court determined that the Court of

Criminal Appeals erred in sua sponte treating his motion to reopen as a petition for writ of

error coram nobis. The intermediate appellate court’s erroneous treatment of his motion to

reopen can provide no basis for tolling the statute of limitations in his subsequent coram

nobis action.

We conclude that the pleadings, read in the light most favorable to Mr. Harris, do not

present a legal basis for overcoming the State’s assertion of the statute of limitations. The

time within which Mr. Harris filed his petition for writ of error coram nobis exceeds the

reasonable opportunity afforded by due process. Mr. Harris’s delay in seeking coram nobis

relief—six years with respect to the alibi evidence and twenty-one months with respect to the

third-party confession—is unreasonable under the circumstances of this case. As a matter

of law and under the circumstances of this case, Mr. Harris is not entitled to due process

tolling.4 Therefore, his petition for writ of error coram nobis is barred by the statute of

4

The Court may take judicial notice of its own records. State v. Lawson, 291 S.W.3d 864, 869-70

(Tenn. 2009). In this instance, there is a direct appeal of the conviction, a post-conviction petition and

appeal, and the motion to reopen in the appeal and the opinion in Harris v. State, 102 S.W.3d 586 (Tenn.

(continued...)

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limitations. Having concluded that his petition is time-barred, we need not address the merits

of his claims.

Conclusion

We hold that the delay in seeking coram nobis relief is unreasonable as a matter of law

under the circumstances of this case. Therefore, due process considerations do not preclude

application of the statute of limitations to bar Mr. Harris’s petition for writ of error coram

nobis. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals and reinstate

the judgment of the trial court dismissing the petition. It appearing that Mr. Harris is

indigent, costs of this appeal are assessed against the State of Tennessee, for which execution

may issue if necessary.

_________________________________

JANICE M. HOLDER, CHIEF JUSTICE

4

(...continued)

2003).

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