Carter v. State

600 S.W.2d 750, 1980 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 278
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedApril 10, 1980
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 600 S.W.2d 750 (Carter v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Carter v. State, 600 S.W.2d 750, 1980 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 278 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1980).

Opinion

OPINION

DUNCAN, Judge.

The appellant, Arnold Carter, brings this appeal contesting the trial court’s dismissal, without an evidentiary hearing, of his petition for post-conviction relief.

In January 1972, the appellant was convicted of robbery in the state of Kentucky and received a life sentence. While serving this sentence, he was indicted for murder and robbery in Monroe County, Tennessee. Thereafter, the Governor of Tennessee and the Governor of Kentucky entered into an executive agreement, the pertinent part of which is as follows:

NOW THEREFORE, pursuant to the criminal extradition laws of Tennessee and Kentucky, respectively,
IT IS MUTUALLY AGREED, that in consideration of the return of said fugitives 1 to the State of Tennessee, as aforesaid before the conclusion of their terms of imprisonment in the Kentucky State Penitentiary, Lyon County, Eddyville, Kentucky, that the said fugitives will be returned to said prison at the expense of the State of Tennessee as soon as the aforesaid prosecution in the State of Tennessee is terminated, (emphasis added).

The appellant was convicted in Tennessee of murder in the first degree and received a sentence of death.2 However, instead of being returned to the state of Kentucky immediately after his trial in Tennessee, the appellant was taken to the Tennessee State Penitentiary where he remained for a period of forty-one days.3 Tennessee officials then apparently discovered their error and an executive order was issued returning the appellant to Kentucky.

The appellant’s complaints are predicated upon the fact that he was not returned to Kentucky immediately after his trial, but rather was placed in the Tennessee penitentiary where he remained for forty-one days before being returned to Kentucky.

The appellant’s trial was completed on May 10, 1972, at which time judgment was imposed. He was transferred to the peni[752]*752tentiary the next day and was returned to Kentucky on June 21, 1972.

In order to aid us in evaluating the appellant’s complaints, we have reviewed the record of the appellant’s direct appeal of his original conviction. His conviction was affirmed by our Court on May 9, 1973. Arnold Carter, et al. v. State of Tennessee, unpublished, Tenn.Crim.App.—Knoxville. Comparing the information contained in that record with the information in the present record, we find that contrary to the appellant’s insistence, he was timely returned to Kentucky. His original appeal record shows that after his conviction, his motion for a new trial was filed on June 7, 1972, and was overruled by the trial court on September 15, 1972. Thus, at the very least, from a legal standpoint the prosecution of the appellant’s case did not terminate within the meaning of the executive agreement until the trial court overruled his motion for a new trial on September 15, 1972, and until that time, Tennessee could have detained the appellant without violating the executive agreement. At any rate, by the time his motion for a new trial was ruled on, the appellant had already' been returned to Kentucky; therefore, his effort to predicate his complaints on an untimely return to Kentucky must fail.

Moreover, even assuming arguendo that the appellant was not timely returned to Kentucky, we find that his complaints are without merit.

First, the appellant asserts that Tennessee did not have proper jurisdiction over him and thus his Tennessee conviction is void. Apparently, it is the appellant’s theory that the failure of Tennessee to immediately return him to Kentucky after trial somehow operated to retroactively deprive the Tennessee court of jurisdiction. We disagree. Appellant cites no authority in support of his theory, nor are we able to find any authority to support it. Rather, it is our opinion that the Tennessee court properly had jurisdiction at the inception of its proceedings, and the subsequent detention of the appellant in the state penitentiary did not operate retroactively to deprive the court of jurisdiction.

Next, the appellant contends that his return to Kentucky by Tennessee authorities operates as an implied pardon or commutation of his Tennessee sentence. The appellant relies primarily on Watson v. Enslow, 183 Colo. 435, 517 P.2d 1346 (1974).

In Watson the prisoner was extradited from California, where he was serving a prison sentence, to Colorado pursuant to an executive agreement between the states’ governors. The prisoner was convicted in Colorado, served eight years of his sentence there, and was placed on parole. At that time, the governor of Colorado attempted to return the prisoner to California. The court, in construing section 5 of the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act,4 held that the failure to order the prisoner’s prompt return to California after his Colorado conviction, as required by the executive agreement, was deemed fatal to the authority of the governor to order the prisoner’s return after he had served eight years of his Colorado sentence and had been granted parole. However, Watson differs from the present case. In Watson, the precise issue was whether the governor of Colorado had the authority to return the prisoner to California. In the present case, the issue is not whether the governor of Tennessee had the authority to return the appellant to Kentucky, but whether the appellant’s return to Kentucky operated as an implied pardon of his Tennessee sentence.

The appellant cites several cases indicating that the surrender of a prisoner to another state while the prisoner is serving a sentence is equivalent to an implied pardon, waiver, or commutation of sentence. Shields v. Beto, 370 F.2d 1003 (5th Cir. 1967); Thompson v. Bannan, 298 F.2d 611 (6th Cir. 1962); Davis v. Harris, 355 S.W.2d 147 (Ky.App.1962).

[753]*753After considering the cases cited by the appellant, we are of the opinion that those cases differ significantly with the present case either on their facts or on the precise issue decided by the respective courts, so as to make them inapplicable to the present case. The Shields case turned on failure of the sovereign to take interest in the return of the prisoner; the Thompson case in fact found no waiver of jurisdiction (although we note that in that case the sentence had not been imposed); the Davis case turned on whether local authorities had the discretion to release a prisoner to another jurisdiction, absent statutory authority.

We call attention to another line of cases which hold that the mere surrender of a prisoner to another jurisdiction does not imply a pardon, waiver, or commutation of sentence. Stroble v. Egeler, 547 F.2d 339 (6th Cir. 1977); Gaches v. Third Judicial District, 416 F.Supp. 767 (W.D.Okl.1976); In re Patterson, 64 Cal.2d 357, 49 Cal.Rptr.

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Bluebook (online)
600 S.W.2d 750, 1980 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 278, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/carter-v-state-tenncrimapp-1980.