State v. Griffin

914 S.W.2d 564, 1995 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 856
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedOctober 16, 1995
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 914 S.W.2d 564 (State v. Griffin) 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
State v. Griffin, 914 S.W.2d 564, 1995 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 856 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1995).

Opinion

OPINION

WELLES, Judge.

This is an appeal as of right pursuant to Rule 3 of the Tennessee Rules of Appellate Procedure. Upon his plea of guilty, the Defendant was convicted of aggravated robbery.1 For this Class B felony, he was sentenced as a Range I standard offender to eleven years in the Department of Correction. On this appeal, the Defendant argues that the juvenile court erred in its determination that he be tried as an adult and that the criminal court erred in sentencing him. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Late in the evening on Christmas day in 1993, the Defendant and two other juveniles entered a convenience store. The Defendant wore a mask and wielded a sawed-off shotgun. The other two juveniles were not armed. The Defendant ordered the store clerk to open the register and give him all the money. After pressing the store’s silent alarm system, the clerk complied, and the robbers fled on foot with the money. They were apprehended a short time later. The Defendant gave a written confession to his involvement, and on this appeal there is no dispute that he was the armed gunman.

[566]*566At the time of the offense, the Defendant was about sixteen and one half years old. Pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated section 37-1-134, a petition was filed and a hearing was conducted thereon to determine whether the Defendant should be transferred to the sheriff of the county to be dealt with as an adult in the criminal court of that county. The juvenile court determined that the Defendant should be dealt with as an adult, and the Defendant argues on appeal that the juvenile court erred in its determination. We first address the question of whether the decision of the juvenile judge on this issue is reviewable on this appeal to this court.

Appeals from juvenile courts are governed by Tennessee Code Annotated section 37-1-159. There is no civil or interlocutory appeal from a juvenile court’s decision that a child should be dealt with as an adult in the criminal court. Tenn.Code Ann. § 37-l-159(d). The statute provides that “if and only if’ a non-lawyer presides at the transfer hearing in juvenile court, then the criminal court, upon motion of the juvenile, shall hold a hearing to determine whether it will accept jurisdiction over the child. Id. If no such motion is filed with the criminal court within ten days, the child is then subject to indictment and being tried as an adult. Id. The judgment of the criminal court accepting jurisdiction of the child is appealable as of right to this court, but only following a conviction on the merits of the charge. Tenn.Code Ann. § 37 — 1—159(f).

If the juvenile judge who presides at the transfer hearing is a lawyer, the statute does not provide for an acceptance hearing in criminal court and apparently one cannot be held. Thus, it appears that the ruling of a lawyer juvenile judge is not reviewable by the criminal court and the criminal court has no alternative but to accept jurisdiction over the juvenile.

Tennessee Code Annotated section 37-1-159 does not specifically address the manner in which an appeal is taken from an order of a lawyer juvenile judge transferring a juvenile to be tried as an adult. When the transfer is made by a non-lawyer juvenile judge, the juvenile is entitled upon motion to an acceptance hearing in criminal court. The juvenile may appeal the order of the criminal court to this court following a conviction on the merits of the charge. We do not believe that the legislature intended for an order of a lawyer juvenile judge transferring a child to be tried as an adult to be unappealable and thus not subject to any review.

We note that the process of obtaining appellate review of a lawyer juvenile judge’s order transferring a child to be tried as an adult is rather awkward. The criminal court has no authority to decline jurisdiction. Thus, the criminal court is put in a position of being forced to dispose of the case on the merits even though an appellate court must later determine whether the decision of the juvenile court transferring the child to the criminal court was correct. Thus, it appears that in order to review the decision of the lawyer juvenile judge, the juvenile in criminal court must either (1) enter a plea of not guilty and thus preserve the issue for review, if convicted, or (2) reserve the issue on a plea of guilty or nolo contendere pursuant to Rule 37(b)(2)(i) or (b)(2)(iv) of the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure. The second alternative assumes that the decision of whether the juvenile should be tried as an adult is a “certified question of law” that may be appealed pursuant to Rule 37. See State v. Kevin L. Moton, No. 03C01-9104-CR-00129, Hamilton County, 1992 WL 19270 (Tenn.Crim.App., Knoxville, filed Feb. 6), perm, to appeal denied, (Tenn., June 22, 1992).

From the record before us, we cannot determine whether the juvenile judge who presided at the transfer hearing was a lawyer. The record in the ease sub judice contains a transcript of the transfer hearing held in juvenile court. While the Defendant states in his brief that the criminal court conducted an acceptance hearing, we find no reference to such a hearing contained in the record before us. Furthermore, we find neither a transcript of an acceptance hearing nor an order entered in the criminal court disposing of any motion for an acceptance hearing. If the Defendant filed a motion in the criminal court requesting a hearing to [567]*567review the juvenile court’s transfer order, there is no record of such proceeding before us.

After the juvenile court transferred the Defendant to the sheriff of the county to be dealt with as an adult in the criminal court, the Defendant was indicted for the offense of aggravated robbery. While the record does not contain a transcript of the hearing in which he pleaded guilty to this offense, it is apparent from the record that his guilty plea was entered unconditionally and with no reservations or any attempt to preserve a certified question.

As we have discussed, the Defendant, upon his plea of guilty, made no attempt to preserve any issue for appeal pursuant to Rule 37(b)(2) of the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure. A guilty plea, voluntarily and understandingly entered by a Defendant, generally waives all non-jurisdictional and procedural defects and constitutional infirmities, if any, in any prior stage of the proceeding. Patterson v. State, 684 S.W.2d 110, 111 (Tenn.Crim.App.1984). It is clear that the criminal court had jurisdiction over the Defendant. State v. Hale, 833 S.W.2d 65 (Tenn.1992). We conclude that when the Defendant entered his guilty plea, without reserving any question concerning the transfer from juvenile court, he waived appellate review of his juvenile court transfer. Therefore, this issue is without merit.

The Defendant next argues that the trial judge erred in sentencing him. He specifically argues that the weight placed on the enhancement factors is not supported by the evidence and that the court abused its discretion in setting the length of the sentence at eleven years.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
914 S.W.2d 564, 1995 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 856, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-griffin-tenncrimapp-1995.