Edwards v. State

• Decision Date: 18 September 2008
• Docket Number: No. M2006-01043-SC-R11-HC.,M2006-01043-SC-R11-HC.
• Citation: 269 S.W.3d 915
• Parties: Michael Dwayne EDWARDS v. STATE of Tennessee, Wayne Brandon, Warden.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

269 S.W.3d 915

Michael Dwayne EDWARDS v. STATE of Tennessee, Wayne Brandon, Warden.

No. M2006-01043-SC-R11-HC.

Supreme Court of Tennessee, at Nashville.

October 3, 2007 Session.

September 18, 2008.

Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General & Reporter; Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General; and Leslie E. Price, Assistant Attorney General, for the Appellant, State of Tennessee, Wayne Brandon, Warden.

Dana Dye, Centerville, Tennessee, for the Appellee, Michael Dwayne Edwards.

WILLIAM M. BARKER, C.J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which CORNELIA A. CLARK, and WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., JJ., joined. GARY R. WADE, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which JANICE M. HOLDER, J., joined.

OPINION

We granted the State's application for permission to appeal to consider whether the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in remanding this habeas corpus case to the trial court for a hearing on Michael Dwayne Edward's claim that his sentence is illegal. After careful consideration we conclude that, even assuming the trial court erroneously classified Edwards as a persistent offender for sentencing, this non-jurisdictional error renders the judgment voidable, not void, and does not entitle Edwards to habeas corpus relief. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals and reinstate the judgment of the trial court dismissing the habeas corpus petition.

I. BACKGROUND

On January 24, 1998, Edwards participated in a burglary of a car dealership in Henry County. On November 4, 1998, a jury convicted Edwards of the offense. On December 9, 1998, the trial court sentenced Edwards on the burglary conviction, classifying him as a persistent offender and imposing a Range III, nine-year sentence. Edwards appealed, raising a single issue, the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his conviction, and this Court denied his application for permission to appeal. See State v. Edwards, No. W1999-00591-CCA-R3-CD, 2000 WL 674671 (Tenn.Crim.App. May 16, 2000), perm. app. denied (Tenn. Dec. 4, 2000).¹

On March 22, 2006, almost six years after the conclusion of his appeal as of right, Edwards filed a habeas corpus petition in Hickman County, where he was incarcerated,² challenging the judgment classifying him as a persistent offender. Edwards argued that, at the time of sentencing, he lacked the five prior convictions necessary to support the persistent offender classification. According to Edwards, one of the convictions used to support the classification, felony evading arrest, occurred after the burglary and did not qualify as a "prior conviction" for purposes of the persistent offender statute. As a result, Edwards argued, the trial court lacked jurisdiction and authority to classify him as a persistent offender.

In order to substantiate his claim, Edwards attached several documents to his petition, including the State's notice of sentencing status, on which the following handwritten notation appears: "Henry County Circuit Court-Minutes/entries Judge's Docket Book Docket No. 12756 Evading (F/E) 9/30/98." Edwards also attached copies of five judgments of conviction including a copy of the judgment on the felony evading arrest conviction, which listed the offense date as May 19, 1998, five months after the burglary was committed. Edwards did not attach a transcript of the sentencing hearing.

The following statutory provisions place Edwards' habeas corpus claim in context. "A `persistent offender' is a defendant who has received: (1)[a]ny combination of five (5) or more prior felony convictions within the conviction class or higher, or within the next two (2) lower felony classes where applicable." Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-35-107(a) (2006).<sup>3</sup> For purposes of the persistent offender statute, "`prior conviction' means a conviction for an offense occurring prior to the commission of the offense for which the defendant is being sentenced." Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-35-107(b)(1) (2006); see also State v. Blouvett, 904 S.W.2d 111, 113 (Tenn.1995) (construing the statutory term "prior conviction" to mean "a conviction that has been adjudicated prior to the commission of the more recent offense for which sentence is to be imposed"). Persistent offenders receive Range III sentences. Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-35-107(c) (2006). Sentences in Range III carry higher criminal penalties and require offenders to serve a greater portion of the sentence before becoming eligible for release. Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-35-107 (2006), Sentencing Comm'n cmts; see Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-35-501(e) (2006). The punishment range for burglary, a Class D felony, is between two and twelve years, with sentences in Range III from eight to twelve years. Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-14-402(c) (2006) (stating that burglary is a Class D felony); Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-35-112(c)(4) (2006) (providing Range III sentence for Class D felonies). "The finding that a defendant is or is not a persistent offender is appealable by either party." Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-35-107(d) (2006).

The State moved to dismiss Edwards' habeas corpus petition, asserting that neither the petition nor the attachments established that the evading arrest conviction actually served as a basis for Edwards' persistent offender classification. The State also maintained that, even if true, Edwards' assertions failed to establish grounds for habeas corpus relief. Thereafter, the trial court summarily dismissed the petition, concluding without additional comment, that the petition failed to establish grounds for habeas corpus relief.

Edwards appealed. The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed and remanded to the trial court for the appointment of counsel and for an "evidentiary hearing." In so doing, the Court of Criminal Appeals stated that it could not "ascertain ... whether the convicting court relied upon the evading arrest conviction in arriving at the range determination, whether there were other prior felonies considered[,] or whether the petitioner agreed to be sentenced outside the range." The Court of Criminal Appeals instructed the Hickman County habeas corpus court to determine on remand "whether the petitioner's range classification was improper" and to remand the case to the convicting court in Henry County "for appropriate sentencing" if it concluded that "the sentence imposed was illegal."

The State filed a petition for rehearing in the Court of Criminal Appeals, arguing that the trial court properly dismissed the habeas corpus petition because, "even if true, the illegal range determination would render the petitioner's sentence merely voidable, not void." The State relied upon McConnell v. State, 12 S.W.3d 795 (Tenn. 2000), for the proposition that non-jurisdictional errors in offender classification do not result in an illegal sentence or provide grounds for habeas corpus relief. The Court of Criminal Appeals acknowledged that, under McConnell, "offender classification can be the subject of plea negotiations and agreed to by a defendant provided that the sentence imposed is within the statutory authority of the sentencing act." However, the Court of Criminal Appeals limited the reasoning of McConnell to plea-bargained sentences, emphasizing that "[u]nlike the situation described in McConnell, the challenged judgment in this case resulted from a sentence imposed by the trial court after a jury conviction." Citing McLaney v. Bell, 59 S.W.3d 90, 92-95 (Tenn.2001), the Court of Criminal Appeals also denied the State's request for clarification of the remand for an "evidentiary hearing." Thus, the Court of Criminal Appeals denied rehearing.

Thereafter, the State filed an application for permission to appeal, which we granted.⁴ Having fully considered the record and the relevant authorities, we conclude that, taken as true, Edwards' assertions do not establish grounds for habeas corpus relief.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Whether habeas corpus relief should be granted is a question of law. Thus, we apply de novo review and afford no presumption of correctness to the findings and conclusions of the courts below. Summers v. State, 212 S.W.3d 251, 255 (Tenn.2007); Hogan v. Mills, 168 S.W.3d 753, 755 (Tenn.2005).

III. ANALYSIS

The right to seek habeas corpus relief is guaranteed by article I, section 15 of the Tennessee Constitution, which declares that "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." Tenn. Const. art. I, § 15. Furthermore habeas corpus procedure in Tennessee has been regulated by statute since the mid-nineteenth century. See Code of Tennessee §§ 3720 to 3765 (Return J. Meigs & William F. Cooper eds., E.G. Easterman & Co. 1858); Summers, 212 S.W.3d at 255; State v. Ritchie, 20 S.W.3d 624, 629 (Tenn.2000). While the statutory language⁵ describing the writ appears broad, in fact, "`[h]abeas corpus under Tennessee law has always been, and remains, a very narrow procedure.'" Archer v. State, 851 S.W.2d 157, 162 (Tenn. 1993) (quoting Luttrell v. State, 644 S.W.2d 408, 409 (Tenn.Crim.App.1982)). Indeed, recognizing the limited nature of Tennessee's habeas corpus procedure, the Legislature enacted the Post-Conviction Procedure Act to provide a collateral procedure that allows state courts to consider and to remedy a broader range of claims. See Tenn.Code Ann. §§ 40-30-101 to -122 (2006); Hickman v. State, 153 S.W.3d 16, 20 (Tenn.2004); Luttrell, 644 S.W.2d at 409.

Moreover, this Court has repeatedly emphasized the limited scope of the remedy afforded by habeas corpus proceedings. See, e.g., May v. Carlton, 245 S.W.3d 340, 344 (Tenn.2008); Faulkner v. State, 226 S.W.3d 358, 361 (Tenn.2007); Hickman, 153 S.W.3d at 20. It is well-settled that "a petition for writ of habeas corpus may not be used to review or correct errors of law or fact committed by a court in the exercise of its jurisdiction." State ex rel. Holbrook v. Bomar, 211...