Young v. State

101 S.W.3d 430, 2002 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 822, 2002 WL 31202133
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedSeptember 27, 2002
DocketM2000-02007-CCA-MR3-PC
StatusPublished
Cited by40 cases

This text of 101 S.W.3d 430 (Young 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
Young v. State, 101 S.W.3d 430, 2002 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 822, 2002 WL 31202133 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2002).

Opinion

JERRY L. SMITH, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court,

in which JOSEPH M. TIPTON and DAVID H. WELLES, JJ., joined.

OPINION

The appellant, Charles William Young, was convicted in a jury trial of the offense of theft over $500. He was sentenced to one year and six months and ordered to serve 60 days of incarceration, to pay a $500 fine and restitution of $800. The appellant’s probation was revoked for the first time in 1997, but he was again placed on probation for 18 months. Two years later his probation was again revoked and the appellant was ordered to serve his original sentence with 94 days of jail credit. He subsequently filed a petition for post-conviction relief, or in the alternative, a writ of habeas corpus and alleged inter alia that a number of alleged constitutional errors occurred at both probation revocation hearings. The trial court summarily dismissed the petition.

We hold that the Post-Conviction Procedures Act, Tennessee Code Annotated Section 40-30-201, et seq., does not provide a *431 cause of action for a collateral attack on a probation revocation proceeding. Moreover, the appellant’s allegations, taken as true, would at most render the results of the probation revocation proceedings voidable, not void, and therefore the writ of habeas corpus is not available to the appellant. The judgment of the trial court is therefore affirmed.

The appellant has presented this Court with an appeal from the denial of a post-conviction/habeas corpus proceeding which collaterally attacks on constitutional grounds, two probation revocation proceedings that ultimately resulted in the appellant being ordered to serve his original eighteen-month sentence in confinement. This Court ordered that the parties address the question of whether a post-conviction proceeding may be utilized to attack collaterally alleged constitutional deprivations occurring at a probation revocation hearing.

The appellant maintains that the Post-Conviction Procedure Act, Tennessee Code Annotated Section 40-30-201, et seq., is an appropriate vehicle for a collateral attack on probation revocation proceedings. The appellant then goes on to raise seven alleged constitutional violations concerning either and/or both of his probation revocation proceedings. The State initially agreed that post-conviction proceedings were available to attack a probation revocation proceeding, but the State maintained that the issues raised in the instant ease did not merit relief. Subsequently, with the permission of this Court, the State withdrew its original brief and filed one arguing that the Post-Conviction Procedures Act does not contemplate a probation revocation as a proceeding subject to attack under the act. The State further maintains that because this is so the appellant’s remaining issues may not be considered by this Court.

Scope of the Postr-Conviction Procedures Act

Section 40-30-203 of the Post-Conviction Procedures Act provides:

Relief under this part shall be granted when the conviction or sentence is void or voidable because of the abridgment of any right guaranteed by the Constitution of Tennessee or the Constitution of the United States.

(emphasis supplied)

Thus, under the act, the subject of the collateral attack must either be the conviction itself or the sentence. It is clear that the appellant in the instant case is not attacking his conviction. Rather, as noted above, he is complaining of alleged constitutional violations that he asserts render the order revoking probation void or voidable.

Therefore, the question in this case is whether an order revoking probation and mandating that the sentence originally imposed be carried out is a “sentence” itself subject to collateral attack under the post-conviction act. This appears to be a question of first impression in this state. For the following reasons, we hold that such an order is not a “sentence” subject to collateral attack under the provisions of the Tennessee Post-Conviction Procedures Act.

Suspended Sentence and Probation

Eligibility of a criminal defendant for suspension of sentence and probation is governed by Tennessee Code Annotated Section 40-35-303. Subsection (c) of that statute provides:

If the court determines that a period of probation is appropriate, the court shall sentence the defendant to a specific sentence but shall suspend the execution of all or part thereof and place the de *432 fendant on supervised of unsupervised probation either immediately or after a period of confinement for a period of time no less than the minimum sentence allowed under the classification and up to and including the statutory maximum time for the class of the conviction offense.

It thus appears that the “sentence” a criminal defendant receives is the period of time that the defendant could be incarcerated. In contrast, an order revoking suspension of sentence or probation typically ends the period of suspension of the execution of the original term and mandates that the original sentence be carried out. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-810, 811. But it cannot be said that the order revoking suspension of sentence and probation imposes a new sentence subject to collateral attack under the Tennessee Post-Conviction Procedures Act. Accord, O’Haren v. State, 927 S.W.2d 447, 451 (Mo.Ct.App.1996) (holding that language in Missouri court rule similar to that in Sec. 40-30-203 does not allow for post-conviction attack on probation revocation).

The Tennessee Supreme Court case of Van Tran v. State, 6 S.W.3d 257 (Tenn.1999); although not directly on point to the issue here, is nevertheless, instructive. In Van Tran, the supreme court was faced with the issue of what is the appropriate procedural mechanism in a capital case to raise the question of the defendant’s competence at the time of his impending execution. 1 The Court established a new procedure for determining competency to be executed finding that the Post-Conviction Act did not contemplate such a proceeding. The Court stated:

PosMUonvietion relief is granted when a prisoner’s conviction or sentence is void or voidable because of the abridgment of any right guaranteed by the Tennessee or United States Constitution. See Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-30-203 (1997). As the trial court in this case recognized, the fact that a petitioner’s present mental condition bars execution does not render the prisoner’s conviction or sentence void or voidable. Instead it simply prevents the State from carrying out the sentence until the prisoner’s competence is restored.

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Bluebook (online)
101 S.W.3d 430, 2002 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 822, 2002 WL 31202133, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/young-v-state-tenncrimapp-2002.