Meadows v. State

849 S.W.2d 748, 1993 Tenn. LEXIS 49
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 16, 1993
StatusPublished
Cited by71 cases

This text of 849 S.W.2d 748 (Meadows v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Meadows v. State, 849 S.W.2d 748, 1993 Tenn. LEXIS 49 (Tenn. 1993).

Opinion

OPINION

ANDERSON, Justice.

We granted this case in order to decide whether a new state constitutional rule was announced in State v. Jacumin 1 for determining probable cause for the issuance of a search warrant. If a new rule was created, we then must determine whether it should be applied retroactively.

The trial court dismissed the petition, finding that even if we announced a new rule, it did not fit within the exceptions to the federal standard that new constitutional rules will not be applied retroactively to cases on collateral review. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, but on the separate ground that the petitioner’s claim had been “previously determined,” and therefore did not present a cognizable claim for relief under the Post-Conviction Procedure Act. We conclude that Jacumin did announce a new state constitutional rule, but that the new rule does not meet our newly adopted state standard for retroactivity in claims for post-conviction relief in that it does not materially enhance the integrity and reliability of the fact finding process at trial. As a result, we affirm the lower court’s dismissal of the petition.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The petitioner, Robert H. Meadows, was arrested after the police conducted a search of his living quarters pursuant to a search warrant and discovered various controlled substances. Meadows filed a motion to suppress the evidence discovered during the search on the grounds that the search warrant had been issued without probable cause, which the trial court denied. Meadows was then convicted of four counts of possession of controlled substances with the intent to manufacture, deliver or sell, was fined $222,000.00, and was sentenced to an effective 44-year period of incarceration.

Meadows appealed his convictions to the Court of Criminal Appeals, contending that the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant was insufficient to satisfy the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and' Article I, § 7 of the Tennessee Constitution. The Court of Criminal Appeals found that the affidavit, which was, in part, based upon information obtained from a confidential informant, satisfied the “totality of the circumstances” test of Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213,103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983), and therefore provided sufficient probable cause for the magistrate to issue the search warrant. State v. Meadows, 745 S.W.2d 886, 890-91 (Tenn.Crim.App.1987). In analyzing the sufficiency of the affidavit, the intermediate court concluded that, for the purposes of both federal and Tennessee law, the “totality of the circumstances” test was the appropriate standard because the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Illinois v. Gates rejected the two-prong “reliability-basis of knowledge” test previously enunciated in Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969), and Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964). See State v. Meadows, 745 S.W.2d at 891.

On February 1, 1988, this Court denied Meadows application for permission to appeal without comment.

In 1989, this Court decided State v. Jacu-min, supra, which rejected the Gates test and held that the proper rule under Tennessee law was the Aguilar-Spinelli test. Meadows then filed a petition for post-conviction relief in the trial court, alleging that the Court of Criminal Appeals incorrectly applied the Gates “totality of the circumstances” test to the affidavit used to obtain the 1985 search warrant. Meadows contended that Jacumin announced a new rule of constitutional law that should be applied retroactively to his case and if so applied, no probable cause would have existed to issue the search warrant.

*750 The trial court dismissed Meadows’ petition, finding that even if Jacumin had announced a new constitutional rule, the new rule did not fall within the exceptions to the federal standard adopted in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989), that new constitutional rules will not be applied retroactively to cases on collateral review. Because of its finding on the retroactivity issue, the trial court found it unnecessary to make a finding on the issue of whether Meadows’ claim had been “previously determined.”

The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of the petition, but on the grounds that the Supreme Court had “previously determined” Meadows’ claim when we denied his application for permission to appeal, and that since post-conviction relief can extend only to grounds that have not been “waived” or “previously determined,” see Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-30-111, the petition should be dismissed. The intermediate court found it unnecessary to determine whether the Jacumin decision was a new rule or should be applied retroactively.

JACUMIN — OLD OR NEW CONSTITUTIONAL RULE?

The first issue to be determined is whether this Court’s opinion in Jacumin, supra, announced a new constitutional rule for analyzing probable cause. In Jacu-min, we rejected the “totality of the circumstances” test enunciated in Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983), and held that the proper standard by which probable cause will be measured under Tennessee law is the two-pronged “reliability-basis of knowledge” test previously enunciated in Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969), and Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964). See Jacumin, 778 S.W.2d at 436.

In Aguilar v. Texas, in order for a search warrant to be supported by probable cause when the affidavit is based upon information provided by a confidential informant, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that:

[although an affidavit may be based on hearsay information and need not reflect the direct personal observations of the affiant, Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697, the magistrate must be informed of some of the underlying circumstances from which the informant concluded that the narcotics were where he claimed they were, and some of the underlying circumstances from which the officer concluded that the informant, whose identity need not be disclosed,

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Bluebook (online)
849 S.W.2d 748, 1993 Tenn. LEXIS 49, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/meadows-v-state-tenn-1993.