David Reed v. State of Tennessee

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE

AT JACKSON

Assigned on Briefs February 2, 2016

DAVID REED v. STATE OF TENNESSEE

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Lauderdale County

No. 6850 Joe H. Walker, III, Judge

No. W2015-01441-CCA-R3-HC - Filed July 22, 2016

_____________________________

The petitioner seeks habeas corpus relief, alleging that he is imprisoned despite the fact

that his sentence has expired. The crux of the petitioner‟s argument is that his two-and-

one-half-year sentence for burglary was to be served prior to his two-year sentence for

vandalism and that the burglary sentence therefore expired prior to the time he violated

his probation. He also disputes the award of sentencing credits. Because the face of the

record shows that the petitioner‟s sentence for burglary was to be served after his

sentence for vandalism and that the probationary period had not expired at the time of

revocation, we conclude that the habeas corpus court properly dismissed the petition, and

we affirm the judgment of the habeas corpus court.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Circuit Court Affirmed

JOHN EVERETT WILLIAMS, J. delivered the opinion of the Court, in which CAMILLE R.

MCMULLEN and TIMOTHY L. EASTER, JJ., joined.

David Reed, Henning, Tennessee, pro se.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Jonathan H. Wardle, Assistant

Attorney General; Jerry Woodall, District Attorney General; and Jody S. Pickens,

Assistant District Attorney General, for the Appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On July 12, 2010, the petitioner pled guilty to one count of burglary, a Class D

felony, one count of vandalism of property worth $500 or more but less than $1,000, a

Class E felony, and one count of evading arrest, a Class E felony. The petitioner was

given a sentence of two and one-half years for the burglary conviction, two years for the

vandalism conviction, and two years for the evading arrest conviction. The petitioner‟s

burglary and vandalism sentences were to be served consecutively to one another, while

the evading arrest sentence was concurrent with all counts. The petitioner was granted

probation on all counts.

After successfully serving more than two and one-half years but less than four and

one-half years on probation, the petitioner was arrested for shooting two people in

Mississippi. A warrant was issued on January 8, 2014, alleging that he had violated the

terms of his probation. The petitioner‟s probation was revoked, but the order revoking

the petitioner‟s probation is not part of the record. However, the record contains a copy

of an “Order Amending Probation Revocation Order” filed December 30, 2014,

apparently in response to the petitioner‟s December 23, 2014, “Motion for Review of

Sentence,” which requested the trial court to review his sentence based on the assertion

that the burglary sentence had expired while the petitioner was on probation.

In its order, the trial court found that the petitioner‟s probation had been revoked

on October 24, 2014. The trial court concluded, however, that the revocation order

should be amended to reflect the fact that the petitioner‟s two-year sentence for

vandalism had already expired and that the only sentence in effect at the time of the

revocation was the two-and-one-half-year burglary sentence. In determining that the

burglary sentence was still in effect at the time of the revocation, the trial court noted that

it had reviewed the record, and it found that, “[p]er the agreement,” the sentence in Count

1 for burglary was to be served after the sentence in Count 2 for vandalism. As the State

points out, the petitioner has also filed a Rule 36.1 motion to correct an illegal sentence,

which the trial court denied and which the petitioner has separately appealed. The

technical record in the appeal of that decision reflects that the trial court, in an effort to

clarify the order in which the petitioner‟s sentences were meant to be served, filed a

corrected judgment sheet in Count 2 on December 30, 2014. 1 See State v. David Reed,

1

We presume that the trial court filed this corrected judgment form in response to the

petitioner‟s “Motion for Review of Sentence” and under Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure

36, which permits the trial court, after giving any notice it considers appropriate, to correct

2

No. W2015-01740-CCA-R3-CD, 2016 WL 1223409 (Tenn. Crim. App. Mar. 29, 2016),

no perm. app. filed.2

The petitioner filed a petition for the writ of habeas corpus on July 10, 2015. The

petitioner attached the original judgment sheets, which show that Count 1 was ordered to

run consecutively to Count 2 and that Count 2 was ordered to run consecutively to Count

1. The order that the sentences would be served is not specified. The plea hearing and

plea agreement are not a part of the record. The probation order indicates that the

vandalism sentence in Count 2 was consecutive to the burglary sentence in Count 1.

The petitioner primarily asserts that the trial court erred in finding that his two-

year vandalism sentence was to be served prior to his two-and-one-half-year burglary

sentence. The petitioner argues that the only sentence in effect at the time of the October

24, 2014 revocation was the two-year vandalism sentence. He accordingly argues that he

is being held in prison based on a conviction – the burglary – for which the sentence

expired two and one-half years after his July 2010 guilty plea.

The petitioner further argues that he should already have been released from

prison based on jail credits which he should have been awarded. He asserts that he

served over two hundred days in confinement in Mississippi before he was removed to

Tennessee for his revocation hearing and that he continued in confinement until he was

transferred to the Tennessee Department of Correction in November 2014. He argues

that the time he was held in a Mississippi prison prior to his transfer should count toward

his service of his Tennessee sentence. He also objects that he was not given “behavior

and program” credits, and he contends that the time he spent on probation should operate

to reduce the prison time for his second sentence.

On July 16, 2015, the habeas corpus court entered an order summarily dismissing

the petition. In doing so, the court found that the petitioner was ordered to serve a

sentence of two and one-half years in confinement beginning on October 24, 2014, and

that there was nothing to indicate, on the face of the record, that this sentence had expired

or was outside the trial court‟s jurisdiction. The habeas corpus court also concluded that

the petitioner had properly received pretrial jail credits for the time he served prior to his

clerical mistakes in judgments. The petitioner did not initiate an appeal of that correction as

permitted under Rule 36.

2

We take judicial notice of the technical record in the petitioner‟s Rule 36.1 appeal, as

“those matters pertaining to the records of a court are subject to judicial notice” by that court.

State v. Lawson, 291 S.W.3d 864, 870 (Tenn. 2009).

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guilty plea and that the petitioner‟s other claims regarding jail credit were not cognizable

in a habeas corpus petition.

ANALYSIS

Article I, section 15 of the Tennessee Constitution provides for the exercise of the

writ of habeas corpus. Habeas corpus may be granted to “[a]ny person imprisoned or

restrained of liberty.” T.C.A. § 29-21-101(a) (2010). The application for the writ must

be made by petition, and a copy of “any legal process” under which the petitioner is

imprisoned must be annexed to the petition or a satisfactory reason given for its absence.

T.C.A. § 29-21-107(b)(2). “These procedural requirements „are mandatory and must be

followed scrupulously.‟” Summers v. State, 212 S.W.3d 251, 259 (Tenn. 2007) (quoting

Archer v. State, 851 S.W.2d 157, 165 (Tenn. 1993)). A petition may be dismissed for

failing to comply with the procedural requirements. Summers, 212 S.W.3d at 260. The

granting or denial of a petition for habeas corpus relief is a question of law reviewed de

novo with no presumption of correctness afforded to the trial court‟s findings or

conclusions. Edwards v. State, 269 S.W.3d 915, 919 (Tenn. 2008).

While the statutory language “appears broad, in fact, „[h]abeas corpus under

Tennessee law has always been, and remains, a very narrow procedure.‟” Edwards, 269

S.W.3d at 919 (quoting Archer, 851 S.W.2d at 162). In order to merit relief, a petitioner

must establish that the challenged judgment is not merely voidable, but void. Hogan v.

Mills, 168 S.W.3d 753, 755 (Tenn. 2005). A judgment is voidable when it is “facially

valid and requires proof beyond the face of the record or judgment to establish its

invalidity.” Summers, 212 S.W.3d at 256. A void judgment, on the other hand, is “one

that is facially invalid because the court did not have the statutory authority to render

such judgment.” Id. “[T]he question of whether a judgment is void „is always one of

jurisdiction, that is, whether the order, judgment or process under attack comes within the

lawful authority of the court or judge rendering or issuing it.‟” Edwards, 269 S.W.3d at

920 (quoting State ex rel. Anglin v. Mitchell, 575 S.W.2d 284, 287 (Tenn. 1979),

overruled on other grounds by Archer, 851 S.W.2d at 162-64).

Relief is only available when “„it appears upon the face of the judgment or the

record of the proceedings upon which the judgment is rendered‟ that a convicting court

was without jurisdiction or authority to sentence a defendant, or that a defendant‟s

sentence of imprisonment or other restraint has expired.” Archer, 851 S.W.2d at 164

(quoting State v. Galloway, 45 Tenn. (5 Cold.) 326, 336-37 (Tenn. 1868)). Habeas

corpus is not a mechanism to “correct errors of law or fact committed by a court in the

exercise of its jurisdiction.” Davis v. State, 313 S.W.3d 751, 759 (Tenn. 2010) (quoting

State ex rel. Holbrook v. Bomar, 364 S.W.2d 887, 888 (1963)).

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Certain errors in sentencing may lead to a judgment that is void. State v. Wooden,

478 S.W.3d 585, 595 (Tenn. 2015). Sentencing errors may generally be categorized as

clerical, appealable, and fatal. Id. Clerical errors are the result of a clerical mistake in

filling out the judgment form and are subject to correction under Tennessee Rule of

Criminal Procedure 36. Id. Appealable errors include challenges to factual findings

supporting the sentence and the correctness of the sentencing court‟s methodology. Id.

Fatal errors, on the other hand, render a sentence void. Id. Sentences are void and may

be set aside pursuant to the writ of habeas corpus when they are not authorized by the

applicable statutes or when they directly contravene an applicable statute. Davis, 313

S.W.3d at 759. Illegal sentences include those imposed pursuant to an inapplicable

statutory scheme and sentences not authorized for the offense by any statute. Id.

The habeas corpus court has the authority to dismiss the petition if the petition

shows that the petitioner “would not be entitled to any relief.” T.C.A. § 29-21-109.

Accordingly, if the petition fails to establish that the judgment is void, the habeas corpus

court is not obligated to hold a hearing on the allegations. Hogan, 168 S.W.3d at 755.

A. Expired Sentence

The petitioner asserts that he is illegally restrained of his liberty because he had

already satisfied the burglary sentence of two and one-half years, which he asserts

expired during his probation and which is the sentence under which he is currently

confined. The petitioner points to the award of pretrial jail credits on Count 1 to indicate

that the trial court erred in concluding that Count 2 was to run prior to Count 1. See

Marvin Rainer v. David G. Mills, Warden, No. W2004-02676-CCA-R3-HC, 2006 WL

156990, at *5 (Tenn. Crim. App. Jan. 20, 2006) (“A defendant incarcerated prior to trial

who receives consecutive sentences is only allowed pre-trial jail credits to be applied

toward the first sentence.”). He argues that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to revoke

his probation on the burglary sentence, which he claims had already expired. The trial

court, however, determined that the plea agreement required the petitioner to serve his

sentence for vandalism first and concluded that the vandalism sentence had expired

during the probationary period. The plea agreement and hearing are not part of the

record. See State v. Brown, 479 S.W.3d 200, 213 (Tenn. 2015) (“To determine whether a

clerical error has been made, a court ordinarily must compare the judgment with the

transcript of the trial court‟s oral statements.”).

In this case, we are not called on to determine if the trial court correctly decided

which sentence should be served first (a decision that was not appealed). Instead, our

review is limited to determining whether, from the face of the record of the underlying

proceedings, it appears that the petitioner‟s burglary sentence has expired. The judgment

documents, as corrected, indicate that the conviction for burglary in Count 1 is to run

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consecutively to the conviction for vandalism in Count 2. A trial court may not revoke

probation after the probationary period has elapsed. Alder v. State, 108 S.W.3d 263, 267

(Tenn. Crim. App. 2002) (“Generally, revocation may occur only within the probationary

period.”). However, when sentences are served consecutively on probation, probation

may be revoked for any unexpired sentence. State v. Anthony, 109 S.W.3d 377, 381

(Tenn. Crim. App. 2001) (concluding revocation was untimely only as to sentence which

had expired prior to the issuance of the warrant). The revocation warrant in this case was

issued in January 2014, prior to the time that the probationary period for the consecutive

burglary sentence expired. The parties agree that the petitioner‟s probation was revoked

on October 24, 2014, and his burglary sentence of two and one-half years began to run at

that time. Accordingly, we conclude that the petitioner has not shown from the face of

the record that his sentence is expired.

B. Sentencing Credits

The petitioner asserts that he is entitled to credit for time he spent in a Mississippi

prison prior to the revocation. Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-23-101 provides

that the trial court must allow credit for time during which the defendant was held in

various types of confinement “pending arraignment and trial.” It also directs that the

defendant must receive credit for times served subsequent to the conviction and “arising

out of the original offense.” T.C.A. § 40-23-101. However, the Tennessee Supreme

Court has recently held that “a trial court‟s failure to award pretrial jail credits does not

render the sentence illegal.” Brown, 479 S.W.3d at 213. Accordingly, the failure to

award pretrial jail credits is not a cognizable claim in habeas corpus. See id.

Neither are his other claims regarding the award of jail credits grounds for

concluding that his sentence is void. See Reed, 2016 WL 1223409, at *2-3 (rejecting the

petitioner‟s Rule 36.1 claims regarding the award of sentence credits). The calculation of

release eligibility by the Tennessee Department of Correction is governed by the Uniform

Administrative Procedures Act, and is not properly the subject of a habeas corpus action.

Carroll v. Raney, 868 S.W.2d 721, 723 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1993); see Stewart v.

Schofield, 368 S.W.3d 457, 459 (Tenn. 2012). The Administrative Procedures Act is also

the proper avenue to address sentence reduction credits when the petitioner is in the

custody of the Department of Correction. State v. Henry, 946 S.W.2d 833, 834 (Tenn.

Crim. App. 1997). Accordingly, such claims are not cognizable in habeas corpus. Yates

v. Parker, 371 S.W.3d 152, 156 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2012) (concluding “that claims for

post-judgment jail credit are not cognizable habeas corpus claims”). We note

parenthetically that jail credits apply only to time served arising out of a particular

conviction and that “[t]he time a defendant spends on probation is not counted toward the

completion of his or her sentence unless a defendant successfully completes the entire

term of probation.” State v. Taylor, 992 S.W.2d 941, 944 (Tenn. 1999); see Majeed v.

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State, 621 S.W.2d 153, 155 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1981) (concluding that incarceration in

another state based on charges brought by that state did not entitle the defendant to

sentencing credit). The petitioner‟s habeas corpus claims regarding sentencing credits

were properly dismissed.

CONCLUSION

Based on the foregoing, the judgment of the habeas corpus court is affirmed.

_________________________________

JOHN EVERETT WILLIAMS, JUDGE

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