State of Tennessee v. Ruben D. Pimentel

02/21/2024

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE

AT NASHVILLE

Assigned on Briefs February 21, 2024

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. RUBEN D. PIMENTEL

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Warren County

No. F9586 Larry B. Stanley, Jr., Judge

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No. M2023-00599-CCA-R3-CD

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In 2005, the Defendant, Ruben D. Pimentel, pled guilty to the offense of first degree murder

and accepted a negotiated sentence of imprisonment for life without possibility of parole.

Thereafter, he filed a motion to correct an illegal sentence pursuant to Tennessee Rule of

Criminal Procedure 36.1. He alleged that his sentence was illegal because it violates

Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-501(h)(2), as amended in 2020, which provides

that a defendant may be released from a life sentence after sixty years. The trial court

summarily denied the motion, finding that the Defendant’s sentence was not illegal. Upon

our review, we respectfully disagree with the Defendant and affirm the trial court’s

judgment.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right;

Judgment of the Circuit Court Affirmed

TOM GREENHOLTZ, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which JAMES CURWOOD WITT,

JR., and MATTHEW J. WILSON, JJ., joined.

Ruben D. Pimentel, Wartburg, Tennessee, Pro Se.

Jonathan Skrmetti, Attorney General and Reporter; Christian N. Clase, Assistant Attorney

General; Chris Stanford, District Attorney General; and Daniel J. Barnes, Assistant District

Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

As relevant to this appeal, the Defendant pled guilty in 2005 to the offense of first

degree murder. As part of the plea agreement, the Defendant accepted a sentence of

imprisonment for life without possibility of parole. See Pimentel v. State, No. M2009-

00668-CCA-R3-PC, 2010 WL 271160 at *2 (Tenn. Crim. App. Jan. 22, 2010), no perm.

app. filed.

In February 2023, the Defendant filed a motion to correct an illegal sentence

pursuant to Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 36.1. In his motion, he alleged that a

2020 amendment to Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-501(h)(2) provides that a

life sentence expires after sixty years. As such, he argued, his original sentence “forever

prohibiting release” is “illegal and void.” The Defendant requested that the trial court

either allow him to withdraw his plea or amend the judgment to reflect a sentence of sixty

years.

On April 3, 2023, the trial court summarily denied the motion. The court found that

the Defendant’s reliance on Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-501(h)(2) was

“irrelevant.” Instead, the trial court found that the Defendant’s sentence is governed by

section 40-35-501(h)(3), which provides that a sentence of imprisonment for life without

possibility of parole has no release eligibility. The trial court denied the Defendant’s

motion, concluding that the Defendant’s judgment properly reflected the agreed-upon

sentence. The Defendant filed a timely notice of appeal on April 24, 2023.

STANDARD OF APPELLATE REVIEW

With respect to every issue on appeal, our supreme court has recognized that a

reviewing court must ask, “[W]hat is the appropriate standard of review?” State v. Enix,

653 S.W.3d 692, 698 (Tenn. 2022). The principal issue in this case is whether the trial

court correctly found that the Defendant failed to state a colorable claim for correction of

an illegal sentence pursuant to Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 36.1. This question

is one of law that we review de novo on appeal. See State v. Wooden, 478 S.W.3d 585,

589 (Tenn. 2015); State v. Watson, No. E2022-01321-CCA-R3-CD, 2023 WL 5925717, at

*8 (Tenn. Crim. App. Sept. 12, 2023) (“Whether a sentence is illegal is a question of law

that we review de novo.”), no perm. app. filed.

ANALYSIS

Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 36.1 provides that a defendant “may seek to

correct an illegal sentence by filing a motion . . . in the trial court in which the judgment of

conviction was entered.” Tenn. R. Crim. P. 36.1(a)(1). An illegal sentence is “one that is

not authorized by the applicable statutes or that directly contravenes an applicable statute.”

Tenn. R. Crim. P. 36.1(a)(2).

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Our supreme court has observed that “few sentencing errors render sentences

illegal.” Wooden, 478 S.W.3d at 595. Sentencing errors may be clerical, appealable, or

fatal errors, but “only fatal errors render sentences illegal.” State v. Reid, 620 S.W.3d 685,

689 (Tenn. 2021) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). These fatal errors may

include “sentences imposed pursuant to an inapplicable statutory scheme, sentences

designating release eligibility dates where early release is statutorily prohibited, sentences

that are ordered to be served concurrently where statutorily required to be served

consecutively, and sentences not authorized by any statute for the offenses.” Wooden, 478

S.W.3d at 595.

When the Defendant pled guilty in 2005, the law provided that “[a] person convicted

of first degree murder shall be punished by: (1) Death; (2) Imprisonment for life without

possibility of parole; or (3) Imprisonment for life.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-202(c) (2003

Repl.). The law also made clear that “[t]here shall be no release eligibility for a defendant

receiving a sentence of imprisonment for life without possibility of parole for first degree

murder.” Id. § 40-35-501(h)(2). The Defendant’s sentence of imprisonment for life

without possibility of parole was then, and remains now, a specifically authorized sentence

for a conviction for first degree murder. See Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 39-13-202(c)(1)(B); 40-

35-501(h)(3) (Supp. 2022).

In the trial court and on appeal, the Defendant makes a complicated argument about

why his sentence is illegal. As we understand it, he starts with three premises. First, the

Defendant asserts that before 1995, the punishment for first degree murder could be death,

a life sentence that had no possibility of parole, and a life sentence that had parole

eligibility.

Second, he notes that the General Assembly eliminated the release eligibility for all

life sentences in 1995. See 1995 Tenn. Pub. Acts, ch. 492 (eff. July 1, 1995.) He argues

that by eliminating release eligibility for life sentences, the legislature abolished any

distinction between a sentence of life and a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

In other words, he maintains that the 1995 amendments effectively repealed the sentence

of life without possibility of parole and created a single type of life sentence that was not

subject to release eligibility.

Third, he asserts that in 2020, the legislature recognized that this single life sentence

now has a “mandatory maximum” of sixty years and can expire before the defendant’s

death. See 2020 Tenn. Pub. Acts, ch. 453 (eff. July 15, 2020) (codified at Tenn. Code

Ann. § 40-35-501(h)(2)). From these premises, he concludes that his current sentence,

which does not expire until his death, is illegal because all life sentences have a release

eligibility after sixty years.

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We respectfully disagree with the Defendant’s premises and his conclusion. The

linchpin of the Defendant’s argument is that the legislature essentially combined the

sentence of life imprisonment with the sentence of life without possibility of parole into a

single life sentence in 1995. This is simply not correct. These sentences have always been

two separate sentences that operate independently of each other.

For example, as part of the 1989 Criminal Sentencing Reform Act, the General

Assembly defined a “life sentence” as being a sentence of sixty years. See 1989 Tenn. Pub.

Acts ch. 591, § 6 (codified at Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-501(g) (Supp. 1989)). Since 1989,

this redefined life sentence has been subject to varying release eligibility requirements.

However, the length of a life sentence has not changed—it has always been a term of sixty

years. See State v. Booker, 656 S.W.3d 49, 55 (Tenn. 2022) (“This sentence [of life

imprisonment] has a sixty-year term with release after fifty-one years if all applicable

sentencing credits are earned and retained.”), cert. denied, 143 S. Ct. 2663 (2023); Brown

v. Jordan, 563 S.W.3d 196, 200 (Tenn. 2018) (“The addition of subsection (i) to 40-35-

501 did not alter the provision in section 40-35-501 setting forth the length of the

determinate sentence. It merely altered the release eligibility for the sentence. Thus, first-

degree murders committed either before or after July 1, 1995, carry the same determinate

sentence length of sixty years.”).

The same is not true with a sentence of life without possibility of parole. Since its

creation in 1993, the sentence of imprisonment for life without possibility of parole has

been one that has no release eligibility. See 1993 Tenn. Pub. Acts, ch. 473, § 3 (adding

Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-5-501(g)(2) (“There shall be no release eligibility for a defendant

receiving a sentence of imprisonment for life without possibility of parole for first degree

murder.”)). Indeed, because a sentence of life without possibility of parole “will not

expire,” it is qualitatively different from a “life sentence.” Lacy v. State, No. M2020-

01644-CCA-R3-HC, 2022 WL 662569, at *3 (Tenn. Crim. App. Mar. 7, 2022), no perm.

app. filed.

As such, changes to the release eligibility of the sixty-year life sentence, whenever

they have occurred, have not affected and are irrelevant to the separate sentence of life

without possibility of parole. Nothing about the Defendant’s sentence of imprisonment for

life without possibility of parole is illegal or contravenes an applicable statute, and the trial

court did not err in concluding that the Defendant’s motion failed to state a colorable claim

for relief. The Defendant’s arguments are without merit.

The Defendant also raises additional issues in this appeal, including that his

sentence of imprisonment for life without possibility of parole is indeterminate and violates

the Fifth and Eighth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The Defendant did

not raise these issues in the trial court, and he has presented them for the first time on

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appeal. As such, we conclude that these issues have been waived. See State v. Allen, 593

S.W.3d 145, 154 (Tenn. 2020) (“Generally, issues raised for the first time on appeal are

waived.” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)).

CONCLUSION

In summary, we hold that the Defendant’s sentence of imprisonment for life without

possibility of parole is not illegal, as it was, and remains, a specifically authorized

punishment for the Defendant’s conviction for first degree murder. We respectfully affirm

the judgment of the trial court denying the Defendant’s claim for relief under Tennessee

Rule of Criminal Procedure 36.1.

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TOM GREENHOLTZ, JUDGE

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