Archer v. State

• Decision Date: 22 March 1993
• Citation: 851 S.W.2d 157
• Parties: Mark D. ARCHER, Petitioner-Appellant, v. STATE of Tennessee, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 157

851 S.W.2d 157

Mark D. ARCHER, Petitioner-Appellant, v. STATE of Tennessee, Respondent-Appellee.

Supreme Court of Tennessee,

at Knoxville.

March 22, 1993.

A. Christian Lanier, III, Chattanooga, for petitioner-appellant.

Charles W. Burson, Atty. Gen. & Reporter, Jeannie Kaess, Asst. Atty. Gen., Nashville, David W. Denny, Thomas J. Evans, Asst. Dist. Attys. Gen., Chattanooga, for respondent-appellee.

OPINION

DAUGHTREY, Justice.

We granted permission to appeal in this case to determine whether challenges to the voluntariness of guilty pleas may properly be advanced in state habeas corpus proceedings. Our examination of the history of the writ of habeas corpus in Tennessee leads us to the conclusion that the reach of the Great Writ is severely restricted in this state and would, in almost all instances, preclude consideration of challenges to the voluntariness of guilty pleas in such proceedings. We thus affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals.

The appellant, Mark D. Archer, is presently incarcerated in Alabama after being convicted in that state for the crime of robbery. Archer's prison sentence was enhanced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, based upon his previous criminal record that included convictions resulting from five guilty pleas entered in Hamilton County, Tennessee, in 1981.

On November 7, 1990, Archer filed with the Hamilton County Criminal Court a "Petition For Writ Of Habeas Corpus," alleging that the five 1981 guilty pleas entered by him were not knowingly and voluntarily entered. Archer insists that neither his lawyer nor the trial judge explained to him prior to entry of his pleas "his right not to be compelled to incriminate himself and that the convictions could be used at some future time for enhancement of punishment purposes."

The trial court converted the petition for a writ of habeas corpus into a petition for post-conviction relief. Because Archer did not file that petition within the three-year period provided by T.C.A. § 40-30-102 for filing such claims, the trial court also ruled that consideration of the appellant's petition was time-barred.

On appeal, the majority of the Court of Criminal Appeals panel held that any error in the acceptance of Archer's 1981 guilty pleas rendered the judgment entered upon those pleas voidable only, and not void. Consequently, the intermediate court concluded that the validity of the guilty pleas could not be challenged in a habeas corpus proceeding and that the trial court properly converted the petition into one for post-conviction relief and dismissed it as untimely. The court also concluded that even if Archer's petition were treated as a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the petition would have to be dismissed because of Archer's failure to comply with various statutory requirements regarding the filing of the petition for the writ.

In a separate concurring opinion, Judge Tipton argued that relevant Tennessee case law holds that the voluntariness of guilty pleas can be challenged in habeas corpus proceedings, citing State ex rel. Anglin v. Mitchell, 575 S.W.2d 284 (Tenn.1979). Archer's failure to comply with statutory prerequisites nevertheless doomed the petitioner's prospects for success on the merits of his petition, in Judge Tipton's opinion.

Before this Court, Archer contends that challenges to the voluntariness of guilty pleas may be raised in petitions for writs of habeas corpus. He thus insists that conversion of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus into a petition for post-conviction relief was improper. Archer also argues that if his petition could properly be viewed as a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, application of the three-year post-conviction statute of limitations found in T.C.A. § 40-30-102 to that petition would operate to suspend the right to the writ of habeas corpus in contravention of the provisions of Article I, Section 15 of the Tennessee Constitution.

In order to determine whether the trial court erred in treating Archer's habeas corpus petition as a post-conviction petition, we must decide whether challenges to the voluntariness of guilty pleas can be maintained in collateral, habeas corpus proceedings. The answer to that question requires, in turn, an examination of the history and the nature of the writ of habeas corpus itself.

Among the first tribunals to use the writ of habeas corpus were the common law courts of medieval England that issued the writ to release individuals incarcerated by rival courts created by independent towns and feudal lords. As the centuries passed and the common law courts became more entrenched in English law, those common law courts used the Great Writ to challenge even the jurisdiction of tribunals associated with the power of the crown. In fact, during the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries, the writ issued to effect the release of persons imprisoned by England's Chancery Courts, Admiralty Courts, and the infamous, inquisitorial Star Chamber. Gerstein, "Habeas Corpus," The Guide to American Law, Vol. 5, p. 416 (1984). By the nineteenth century, the writ was so revered in Great Britain that Thomas Babington Macaulay, the noted British historian and essayist, could refer to England's Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 as "the most stringent curb that ever legislation imposed on tyranny."

Accustomed to the protections afforded by the writ of habeas corpus, the English colonists journeying to the New World brought with them that same respect for the writ. Upon formation of the United States of America, the founders of the nation included in the constitution the mandate that "[t]he privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, clause 2. Additionally, the Judiciary Act of 1789 included within it provisions allowing for the issuance of the writ in cases in which actions of the federal government ¹ resulted in any violation of the Constitution of the United States, federal statutes, or treaties of the United States. (The habeas corpus provisions of federal law are now codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2241.)

The earliest Supreme Court decisions construing applications of the writ were, however, restrictive in their interpretations of the protections offered by the writ. In Ex parte Watkins, 28 U.S. (3 Pet.) 193, 202-03, 7 L.Ed. 650, 653 (1830), for example, the Court observed:

The court can undoubtedly inquire into the sufficiency of [the cause of a petitioner's confinement]; but if it be the judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction, especially a judgment withdrawn by law from the revision of this court, is not that judgment in itself sufficient cause? Can the court, upon this writ, look beyond the judgment, and re-examine the charges on which it was rendered? A judgment, in its nature, concludes the subject on which it is rendered, and pronounces the law of the case. The judgment of a court of record whose jurisdiction is final, is as conclusive on all the world as the judgment of this court would be. It is as conclusive on this court as it is on other courts. In puts an end to inquiry concerning the fact by deciding it.

....

An imprisonment under a judgment cannot be unlawful, unless that judgment be an absolute nullity; and it is not a nullity if the court has general jurisdiction of the subject, although it should be erroneous.

Throughout the ensuing years, federal courts began to interpret the reach of the Great Writ more broadly. First, in Ex parte Lange, 85 U.S. (18 Wall.) 163, 176-77, 21 L.Ed. 872, 879 (1874), the Supreme Court determined that while a trial court may have general criminal jurisdiction, such a court has no jurisdiction to impose a punishment beyond that authorized for a particular crime. Thus, such an unauthorized punishment may be challenged by a petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

Similarly, the writ is available to contest convictions imposed under unconstitutional statutes, because an unconstitutional law is void and can, therefore, create no offense. Ex parte Siebold, 100 U.S. 371, 376-77, 25 L.Ed. 717, 719 (1880). Convictions imposed in trials so infected by violence and mob mentality "that there is an actual interference with the course of justice" may also justify issuance of the writ to cure "a departure from due process of law." Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U.S. 86, 91, 43 S.Ct. 265, 266, 67 L.Ed. 543 (1923), citing Frank v. Mangum, 237 U.S. 309, 35 S.Ct. 582, 59 L.Ed. 969 (1915).

Finally, in Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 409, 83 S.Ct. 822, 832, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963), the United States Supreme Court broadened the concept of habeas corpus relief and suggested that any "restraints contrary to our fundamental law, the Constitution, may be challenged on federal habeas corpus even though imposed pursuant to the conviction of a federal court of competent jurisdiction." Although that expansive interpretation given the writ in Fay v. Noia has been restricted somewhat in subsequent decisions ² of the Supreme Court, federal habeas corpus relief remains available "to remedy [almost] any kind of governmental restraint contrary to fundamental law." Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. at 405, 83 S.Ct. at 831.

The development of habeas corpus law in Tennessee parallels, in many ways, the development of early federal law concerning the Great Writ. First, the Tennessee Constitution, like the Constitution of the United States, contains a specific provision prohibiting suspension of the writ. Pursuant to Article I, Section 15 of the Tennessee Constitution, "the privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in case of rebellion or invasion, the General Assembly shall declare the public safety requires it."

Furthermore, like the language of 28 U.S.C. §§ 2241, et seq., the wording of Tennessee's habeas corpus statute initially appears to offer...