Seals v. State
| Decision Date | 20 June 2000 |
| Citation | 23 S.W.3d 272 |
| Parties | John Paul SEALS v. STATE of Tennessee. Vikki Lynn Fritts Spellman v. State of Tennessee. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Paul G. Summers, Attorney General & Reporter, and Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General, and Ellen H. Pollack, Assistant Attorney General, Peter M. Coughlan, Assistant Attorney General, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellant, State of Tennessee.
Marti L. Kaufman, Memphis, Tennessee, for the appellees, John Paul Seals and Vikki Lynn Fritts Spellman.
ANDERSON, C.J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which DROWOTA, BIRCH, BARKER, and HOLDER, JJ., joined.
We granted review in this consolidated appeal to determine whether mental incompetency tolls the one-year statute of limitations for filing a post-conviction petition under either a savings provision or constitutional due process. The trial court dismissed the petitions for being time-barred. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that constitutional due process requires that the statute of limitations be tolled while a petitioner is mentally incompetent. We conclude that the statute of limitations is not tolled by a savings provision but may be tolled by due process concerns where a petitioner is denied a reasonable opportunity to raise a claim in a meaningful time and manner. We affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals.
We granted this consolidated appeal to decide whether under either the general savings statute set forth in Tenn.Code Ann. § 28-1-106 (1980) or constitutional due process a petitioner's mental incompetence will toll the one-year statute of limitations for filing a post-conviction action under the 1995 Post-Conviction Procedure Act.
Each of the appellees, John Paul Seals and Vikki Lynn Spellman, alleged in their separate post-conviction petitions that they were unable to bring their post-conviction claims within one year from the entry of the trial courts' judgments due to their mental incompetence. Each trial court dismissed the petition for being filed after the expiration of the statute of limitations. The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed, concluding that under our decision in Watkins v. State, 903 S.W.2d 302 (Tenn.1995), a petitioner's mental incompetence tolls the statute of limitations.1
After reviewing the record and applicable authority, we conclude that the savings provision in Tenn.Code Ann. § 28-1-106 does not toll the one-year statute of limitations but that due process may require tolling to ensure that a petitioner has a meaningful opportunity to present claims in a reasonable time and manner. We therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals.
John Paul Seals pled guilty to first-degree murder in December of 1988, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Seals later filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus or in the alternative post-conviction relief asserting that his guilty plea was not voluntary and knowing and that he was denied his constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel. The trial court treated the petition as one for post-conviction relief and dismissed it as time-barred in April of 1994.
A second post-conviction petition was later filed by "next friend" on behalf of Seals. The petition alleged that Seals had been mentally incompetent since before his guilty plea and sentence and that mental incompetence tolls the statute of limitations. The trial court once again dismissed the petition for being time-barred.
The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed and remanded after concluding that Seals had satisfied the threshold burden for asserting mental incompetence and that a hearing was required for Seals and the State to present evidence as it related to mental incompetence and the tolling of the statute of limitations. The court said that if the trial court determined that the statute was tolled due to mental incompetence, it must consider the merits of the issues presented in the petition.
Vikki Lynn Spellman pled guilty to first-degree murder in April of 1988, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. In June of 1989, Spellman filed her first petition for post-conviction relief alleging ineffective assistance of counsel. Spellman was appointed counsel after she filed her petition, but the petition was dismissed prior to the evidentiary hearing.
Spellman, proceeding pro se, filed a second petition for post-conviction relief in December of 1997, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel at the time of her original guilty plea. She asserted that she withdrew her first petition because of her "psychological state" at the time and that she was in "no condition to assist post-conviction counsel in presenting anything in a logical, orderly fashion to the Court." She is currently residing in the Lois DeBerry Special Needs Facility. She stated in her petition that although she is still receiving treatment, she was able to file this second petition because of her "present, positive psychological health." The trial court dismissed the petition in January of 1998, without a hearing after finding that the petition was time-barred.
The Court of Criminal Appeals determined that Spellman had satisfied the threshold burden of raising mental incompetence and remanded for a hearing to determine whether tolling of the statute of limitations was required.
The State appealed in both cases.
We begin by reviewing the history of post-conviction statutes in Tennessee. In Case v. Nebraska, 381 U.S. 336, 85 S.Ct. 1486, 14 L.Ed.2d 422 (1965), the United States Supreme Court recommended that states enact procedures for addressing alleged constitutional errors occurring during the conviction process to supplement habeas corpus remedies available in federal court. The Tennessee legislature responded by creating the Post-Conviction Procedure Act in 1967. Burford v. State, 845 S.W.2d 204, 206 (Tenn.1992).
Under the Act, relief was to be granted "when the conviction or sentence was void or voidable because of the abridgment in any way of any right guaranteed by the constitution of Tennessee or the Constitution of the United States." Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-30-105 (1990) (repealed 1995). Under the original Act, there was no statute of limitations, and a petition could be filed "at any time after a petitioner had exhausted his appellate remedies and before the sentence had expired or had been fully satisfied." Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-30-102 (1982) (repealed 1986).
In 1986, the legislature enacted a three-year statute of limitations in which petitioners had to file their claims:
a prisoner in custody under sentence of a court of this state must petition for post-conviction relief under this chapter within three (3) years of the date of the final action of the highest state appellate court to which an appeal is taken or consideration of such petition shall be barred.
Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-30-102 (1990) (repealed 1995). By its terms, the statute provided for no exceptions and contained no specific provisions on tolling.
In Watkins, however, we addressed the issue of whether mental incompetence tolled the three-year period pursuant to a general savings provision, which stated:
If the person entitled to commence an action is, at the time the cause of action accrued ... of unsound mind, such person ... may commence the action, after the removal of such disability, within the time of limitation for the particular cause of action, unless it exceed sic three (3) years, and in that case within three (3) years from the removal of such disability.
Tenn.Code Ann. § 28-1-106. We concluded that post-conviction petitions in this context were to be considered civil in nature, and we held that the savings statute applied to toll the three-year statute of limitations in cases where the petitioner was incompetent. Watkins, 903 S.W.2d at 305, 307.
Our holding in Watkins with respect to the savings statute does not, however, end the analysis in this case. The legislature enacted the Post-Conviction Procedure Act of 1995, which repealed prior post-conviction statutes and contained several substantial changes. It reduced the time for filing a petition from three years to one year of the date of the highest state appellate court action, or, if there was no appeal, one year of the date of final judgment. Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-30-202(a) (Supp.1996). The 1995 Act included an anti-tolling provision stating that "the statute of limitations shall not be tolled for any reason...." Id.2 Moreover, following our decision in Watkins, the legislature again amended the statute to add the following italicized language:
The statute of limitations shall not be tolled for any reason, including any tolling or saving provision otherwise available at law or equity. Time is of the essence of the right to file a petition for post-conviction relief or motion to reopen established by this chapter, and the one-year limitations period is an element of the right to file such an action and is a condition upon its exercise.
Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-30-202(a) (1997) (emphasis added); 1996 Tenn. Pub. Acts ch. 995, §§ 1-3. Accordingly, as the post-conviction statute has evolved, the legislature has limited the time and opportunity to file petitions seeking relief. See Carter v. State, 952 S.W.2d 417, 419 (Tenn.1997).
A basic principle of statutory construction is to ascertain and give effect to legislative intent without unduly restricting or expanding the intended scope of a statute. Id. at 419; Owens v. State, 908 S.W.2d 923, 926 (Tenn.1995). This principle requires the Court to examine the language of a statute and, if unambiguous, apply its ordinary and plain meaning. Parks v. Tennessee Mun. League Risk Management Pool, 974 S.W.2d 677, 679 (Tenn.1998); Riggs v. Burson, 941 S.W.2d 44, 54 (Tenn.), cert. denied, 522 U.S. 982, 118 S.Ct. 444, 139 L.Ed.2d 380 (1997). If the legislative...
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