Frazier v. State

• Decision Date: 07 July 2016
• Docket Number: No. M2014–02374–SC–R11–ECN,M2014–02374–SC–R11–ECN
• Citation: 495 S.W.3d 246
• Parties: Clark D. Frazier v. State of Tennessee
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

495 S.W.3d 246

Clark D. Frazier

v.State of Tennessee

No. M2014–02374–SC–R11–ECN

Supreme Court of Tennessee, AT NASHVILLE.

February 10, 2016 Session

Filed July 7, 2016

Jonathan A. Garner, Springfield, Tennessee, for the appellant, Clark D. Frazier.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Andrée S. Blumstein, Solicitor General; Andrew C. Coulam, Assistant Attorney General; John W. Carney, District Attorney General; and Jason White, Assistant District Attorney, for the appellee, the State of Tennessee.

JEFFREY S. BIVINS

, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which CORNELIA A. CLARK and HOLLY KIRBY, JJ., joined. SHARON G. LEE, C.J., filed a dissenting opinion.

OPINION

JEFFREY S. BIVINS, J.

We granted permission to appeal in this case to determine whether a criminal defendant who pleads guilty may later seek to overturn his plea via a petition for writ of error coram nobis filed pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated section 40–26–105

. Although this Court held in Wlodarz v. State, 361 S.W.3d 490 (Tenn.2012), that guilty pleas may be subject to a collateral attack via a petition for writ of error coram nobis, we now overturn that decision. We hold that the statute setting forth the remedy of error coram nobis in criminal matters does not encompass its application to guilty pleas. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals on the separate grounds stated herein.

Factual and Procedural History

This matter began in 2004 when Clark Derrick Frazier, the Petitioner, stabbed to death Rosario Salas Angel. The Petitioner was charged with first degree murder. In March 2007, the Petitioner pled guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. The Petitioner filed a petition for post-conviction relief, which was denied. See Frazier v. State, No. M2008–01303–CCA–R3–PC, 2009 WL 1272278, at *1 (Tenn.Crim.App. May 5, 2009)

, perm. appeal denied (Tenn. Aug. 31, 2009).

On June 15, 2011, the Petitioner filed the instant petition for writ of error coram nobis claiming that he is entitled to a new trial on the basis of newly discovered evidence. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied relief. On direct appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. See Frazier v. State, No. M2014–02374–CCA–R3–ECN, 2015 WL 4040383, at *5 (Tenn.Crim.App. July 1, 2015)

, perm. app. granted (Tenn. Oct. 15, 2015). We granted the Petitioner's application for permission to appeal in order to revisit the issue of whether a criminal defendant who pleads guilty may later attack that plea by seeking error coram nobis relief under Tennessee Code Annotated section 40–26–105.

Analysis

Initially, we note that neither the United States Constitution nor the Tennessee Constitution provides a criminal defendant with a constitutional right to error coram nobis relief. See United States v. Morgan, 346 U.S. 502, 506, 74 S.Ct. 247, 98 L.Ed. 248 (1954)

(recognizing that a federal court's power to grant coram nobis relief arises from the “all-writs section of the Judicial Code” and making no reference to the federal constitution); State v. Mixon, 983 S.W.2d 661, 666–68 (Tenn.1999) (tracing the historical common-law and statutory origins of error coram nobis and its availability in Tennessee). Rather, in Tennessee, the availability of error coram nobis relief is governed solely by statute.

Our statute setting forth the parameters for seeking a writ of error coram nobis in criminal matters provides as follows:

The relief obtainable by this proceeding shall be confined to errors dehors the record and to matters that were not or could not have been litigated on the trial of the case, on a motion for a new trial, on appeal in the nature of a writ of error, on writ of error, or in a habeas corpus proceeding. Upon a showing by the defendant that the defendant was without fault in failing to present certain evidence at the proper time, a writ of error coram nobis will lie for subsequently or newly discovered evidence relating to matters which were litigated at the trial if the judge determines that such evidence may have resulted in a different judgment, had it been presented at the trial .

Tenn.Code Ann. § 40–26–105(b)

(2012) (emphases added) (“the coram nobis statute”). The decision to grant or deny a petition for writ of error coram nobis on the merits rests within the trial court's sound discretion. Harris v. State, 301 S.W.3d 141, 144 (Tenn.2010) (citing State v. Vasques, 221 S.W.3d 514, 527–28 (Tenn.2007) ).

In 2012, in a three-to-two decision, this Court concluded that the coram nobis statute could be utilized by a criminal defendant who had pled guilty. Wlodarz v. State, 361 S.W.3d 490, 503–04 (Tenn.2012)

. Justice Koch, joined by Justice Clark, disagreed with this holding. Id. at 507 (Koch, J., concurring in result). We accepted this appeal to reexamine the availability of the error coram nobis statute as a procedural mechanism to collaterally attack a guilty plea. We now overturn the majority's decision in Wlodarz and hold that a guilty plea may not be collaterally attacked pursuant to the coram nobis statute.

We determine the availability of the error coram nobis statute to attack guilty pleas by the usual rules of statutory construction. The role of this Court in statutory interpretation is to assign a statute the full effect of the legislative intent without restricting or expanding its intended scope. State v. Springer, 406 S.W.3d 526, 533 (Tenn.2013)

; State v. Marshall, 319 S.W.3d 558, 561 (Tenn.2010). In doing so, we first look to the plain language of the statute to determine the legislature's intent. State v. Jennings, 130 S.W.3d 43, 46 (Tenn.2004). We are constrained to give the statute's words their natural and ordinary meaning. Lee Med., Inc. v. Beecher, 312 S.W.3d 515, 526 (Tenn.2010).

When those words are clear and unambiguous, we need not consider other sources of information but must simply enforce the statute as written. See Shelby Cnty. Health Care Corp. v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 325 S.W.3d 88, 92 (Tenn.2010)

; U.S. Bank, N.A. v. Tennessee Farmers Mut. Ins. Co., 277 S.W.3d 381, 386 (Tenn.2009) ; Gleaves v. Checker Cab Transit Corp., 15 S.W.3d 799, 803 (Tenn.2000). It is not the role of this Court to substitute its own policy judgments for those of the legislature. Gleaves, 15 S.W.3d at 803 ; BellSouth Telecomms., Inc. v. Greer, 972 S.W.2d 663, 673 (Tenn.Ct.App.1997).

We begin our analysis by emphasizing that the coram nobis statute makes repeated references to the words “evidence,” “litigated,” and “trial.” Significantly, the coram nobis statute makes no reference to the word “plea.”

In Wlodarz,

the majority briefly traced the history of the writ of error coram nobis, including a glance at how other jurisdictions applied the writ. 361 S.W.3d at 496–501. The majority noted that, “[a]t the federal level, ... the writ of error coram nobis, grounded in hundreds of years of common law, remains a valid remedy available to challenge a conviction based on a guilty plea.” Id. at 500 (citing Morgan, 346 U.S. at 510, 74 S.Ct. 247 ; 16A Fed. Proc. L.Ed. § 41:603 (West 2011) ; 39 Am.Jur.2d Habeas Corpus § 209 (2011) ; 18 Am.Jur. Trials 1 § 17 (1971)). Next, referring to four decisions by other state courts, the majority stated that, “in the numerous states that continue to recognize writs of error coram nobis as separate and distinct from other post-conviction remedies, guilty pleas can be challenged via the writ.” Id. at 500–01 (citing Echols v. State, 354 Ark. 414, 125 S.W.3d 153, 156 (2003) ; State v. Brooks, 89 Conn.App. 427, 874 A.2d 280, 287 (2005) ; Skok v. State, 361 Md. 52, 760 A.2d 647, 662 (2000) ; People v. Antoniou, 59 A.D.3d 805, 872 N.Y.S.2d 756, 757 (2009) ). The majority then concluded that, “at all times past and present, where a state has offered the writ of error coram nobis as a potential remedy in criminal matters, there has never been an outright bar against using the writ to challenge a conviction based on a guilty plea.” Id. at 501 (citing Duncan v. State, 42 Ala.App. 509, 169 So.2d 439, 441 (1964) ; People v. Chaklader, 24 Cal.App.4th 407, 29 Cal.Rptr.2d 344, 345 (1994) ; Wood v. State, 750 So.2d 592 (Fla.1999) ; Reponte v. State, 57 Haw. 354, 556 P.2d 577 (1976) ; People v. Andrus, 41 Ill.2d 543, 244 N.E.2d 161, 162 (1969) ; State v. Hawkins, 142 Kan. 874, 51 P.2d 914, 914 (1935) ; Dwyer v. State, 151 Me. 382, 120 A.2d 276, 284 (1956) ; Baker v. State, 358 So.2d 401 (Miss.1978) ; Arnold v. State, 552 S.W.2d 286, 291 (Mo.Ct.App.1977) ; State v. LeMay, 144 Mont. 315, 396 P.2d 83 (1964) ; State v. Lee, 40 N.C.App. 165, 252 S.E.2d 225, 227–29 (1979) ; Hall v. Langlois, 108 R.I. 454, 276 A.2d 768, 770, 772 (1971) ; State v. Plum, 14 Utah 2d 124, 378 P.2d 671, 673 (1963) ; State v. Schill, 93 Wis.2d 361, 286 N.W.2d 836, 842–45 (1980) ). However, none of the above nineteen decisions cited by the majority involved the construction of an error coram nobis statute similar to Tennessee's.

In spite of its references to the common law, the majority in Wlodarz

conceded that it was construing Tennessee's statutory provision for seeking the writ. See id. (stating that “[t]he precise question presented in this case is whether the writ, as codified in Tennessee Code Annotated section 40–26–105(b), may be used to challenge a conviction based upon a guilty plea, rather than a bench trial or a trial by jury” (emphasis added) (footnote omitted)). The majority noted that the coram nobis statute did not define the word “trial.” Id. This perceived omission was then leveraged into a conclusion that what the legislature “intended by the use of the word trial [in the coram nobis statute] is not clear and unambiguous.” Id. at 502

.

From this statutory construction starting point, the majority first embraced various authorities interpreting the word “trial” “broadly,” id.

(citing 75 Am.Jur.2d Trial § 1 (West 2011) ; 88 C.J.S. Trial § 1 (West 2011) ; Black's Law Dictionary 1543 (8th ed.2004); ...