Shettles v. State

352 S.W.2d 1, 209 Tenn. 157, 13 McCanless 157, 1961 Tenn. LEXIS 359
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 20, 1961
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 352 S.W.2d 1 (Shettles 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
Shettles v. State, 352 S.W.2d 1, 209 Tenn. 157, 13 McCanless 157, 1961 Tenn. LEXIS 359 (Tenn. 1961).

Opinions

Me. Justice Burnett

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Plaintiff in error was indicted for embezzlement and grand larceny. She was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to not more than three years in the State penitentiary. In the outset we are met with a motion on behalf of the State to dismiss the appeal because the plaintiff in error failed to file her motion for a new trial within thirty (30) days of the verdict, as is required by Section 27-201, T.C.A. This Section of the Code now reads:

[159]*159“A rehearing or motion for new trial can only be applied for within thirty (30) days from the decree, verdict or judgment sought to be affected, subject, however, to the rules of court prescribing the length of time in which the application is to be made, but such rules in no case shall allow less than ten (10) days for such application. The expiration of a term of court during said period shall not shorten the time allowed. ’ ’

Prior to the Code Supplement of 1950 this Section read:

“A rehearing can only be applied for at the term of the court at which the decree sought to be affected is rendered.”

Thus it is the cases cited by both parties in reference to this motion are bottomed on the Code Section last quoted as it read prior to the 1950 Supplement, which is carried into the present Code under Section 27-201, T.C.A., above quoted.

At the outset it might be reasonable to say the question looks fairly simple. When one reads the various cases, as cited, and others on the related question and text writers on this question, it is not as simple as it looks, because as said above all of these old cases are based on the Code as it was prior to the 1950 Supplement.

The factual situation upon which this motion was based is that the verdict of the jury was entered on June 29, 1960. There appears immediately following the verdict of the jury without the benefit of a paragraph or anything else the following: “Thereupon the defendant, through her counsel of record, moves the Court for a new trial herein, which motion is set for hearing on August 2,1960. ’ ’ By subsequent entries the motion for a new [160]*160trial was reset until December 2, 1960, when the entry shows that the motion was heard and taken under advisement. The motion for a new trial was actually filed on November 25,1960, that is, the written motion setting out various and sundry grounds wherein it is alleged that error had been committed in the trial of the case. On January 6, 1961, the court entered an order overruling the motion and sentencing defendant and granting her an appeal. Subsequent orders were seasonably made granting additional time in which to file the bill of exceptions.

It is to be observed that in the statement quoted above immediately following the return of the verdict of the jury that there are no grounds stated for the motion for a new trial, the statement merely being that the counsel moves the court for a new trial, or the exact language as quoted above. In Caruthers’ History of a Lawsuit, Gil-reath, 7th Ed., at page 458, sec. 421, the author says this:

“It is not proper to make the motion as soon as the verdict is rendered. It would generally be offensive to the jury, and an interruption of the regular course of business. Formerly in Tennessee the motion was made orally and a simple statement of the fact entered on the minutes. It contained no particular statement of the ground relied upon for obtaining the new trial. These were stated later in an argument on the motion. ’ ’

This practice which is here condemned by the author of Caruthers’ History of a Lawsuit is apparently the practice that was followed in the instant case. Later in this same Section the author of Caruthers says:

‘ ‘ This practice has been changed. In the exercise of the. inherent right of all courts to prescribe reasonable [161]*161rules of practice, many of the circuit courts of Tennessee now require that the motion for a new trial he reduced to writing, that it shall contain a specific statement of the grounds relied on for obtaining a new trial, and that the whole be spread on the minutes of the court, and that all errors or grounds for relief not appearing in the motion shall be considered as waived. ’ ’

This is a very fair and reasonable statement of the law as it is now and has been devolved over many years of practice in this State.

There is no, as far as we can find or has been cited, statutory obligation or authority requiring one though to file with his motion for a new trial the grounds therefor. Apparently it has been assumed that necessarily a motion for a new trial would have no meaning unless the grounds therefor were set forth. And, too, the bar generally knows that the trial court has statutory authority (Sec. 16-514, T.C.A.) to make rules of practice deemed expedient and reasonably necessary for the proper trial of cases. We think, too, as has been intimated in many decisions and as is said in the quotation from Caruthers above that the trial court has this inherent power. The most thorough statement in reference to what the rules of the trial court should require and how these rules are to be enforced by an appellate court, that we have found, is in Railroad v. Johnson, 114 Tenn. 632, 88 S.W. 169.

This record does not contain the rules of the Criminal Court of Shelby County. We cannot judicially know what the rules of practice are in this court or any other court of the State, and we will not notice them, and cannot notice them, unless they are proved on the trial below and incorporated in the bill of exceptions, or found [162]*162in the minutes of the court. Brewer v. State, 187 Tenn. 396, 215 S.W.2d 798. No such rules being incorporated herein we have no knowledge that there are any such rules in this court. This being true and there being no statutory requirement that such grounds be stated when the motion is made, the practice being as it formerly was as is stated from our quotation from Caruthers above, we cannot sustain the motion but must sustain the motion to strike because as far as we know the motion was filed within the rules as prescribed by the court wherein it was heard.

The State in support of its motion herein relies upon the case of Liner v. Jenkins, 170 Tenn. 1, 91 S.W.2d 289, as being absolutely in point. In the first place we have to remember that at the time the Liner case was written (1936) the code was not as it now is. In the second place in the Liner case counsel merely gave notice that he was going to move for a new trial. Under such language this Court held in the Liner case that this was not a motion, because it did not specify any errors or grounds whatsoever to comply with the rule of that court which provided that: “motions for new trial, both in jury and non-jury cases, shall specify the errors claimed to have been committed on the trial, or the grounds upon which the motion is based, which shall be entered upon the motion docket and filed with the clerk. ’ ’ This Court likewise said in the Liner case, “Whether or not this would be so independently of governing trial court rules, it is inescapably so, in view of the express requirement * * *” of the rule as last above quoted. Thus it is that the Liner case is not in point.

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Shettles v. State
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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
352 S.W.2d 1, 209 Tenn. 157, 13 McCanless 157, 1961 Tenn. LEXIS 359, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/shettles-v-state-tenn-1961.