Wlodarz v. State

• Decision Date: 23 February 2012
• Docket Number: No. E2008–02179–SC–R11–CO.,E2008–02179–SC–R11–CO.
• Citation: 361 S.W.3d 490
• Parties: Stephen Bernard WLODARZ v. STATE of Tennessee.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

361 S.W.3d 490

Stephen Bernard WLODARZ

v.STATE of Tennessee.

No. E2008–02179–SC–R11–CO.

Supreme Court of Tennessee, at Knoxville.

May 11, 2011 Session.Feb. 23, 2012.

William Louis Ricker, Greeneville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Stephen Bernard Wlodarz.

Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter; Gordon W. Smith, Solicitor General; Mark A. Fulks, Senior Counsel; C. Berkeley Bell, Jr., District Attorney General; and J. Douglas Goodbee, Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

GARY R. WADE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which JANICE M. HOLDER and SHARON G. LEE, JJ., joined. WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., filed a separate opinion concurring in the judgment in which CORNELIA A. CLARK, C.J., joined.

GARY R. WADE, J.

The petitioner, charged with first degree premeditated murder and other crimes, entered best interest guilty pleas and received an effective sentence of life without parole. After an unsuccessful petition for post-conviction relief challenging the effectiveness of his trial counsel, he filed a petition for a writ of error coram nobis alleging newly discovered, exculpatory ballistic evidence. The trial court denied the petition, and the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. Wlodarz v. State, No. E2008–02179–CCA–R3–CO, 2010 WL 1998766 (Tenn.Crim.App. May 19, 2010). We granted the application for permission to appeal to consider whether a petitioner who has entered guilty pleas may challenge his convictions by writ of error coram nobis pursuant to the terms of our statute. Tenn.Code Ann. § 40–26–105(b) (2006). While we have determined that the petitioner did not forfeit the procedural remedy of writ of error coram nobis based on newly discovered evidence by entering the guilty pleas, the evidence in this instance does not qualify as newly discovered. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals is affirmed.

I. Facts and Procedural History

On July 13, 2000, officers from the Hawkins County Sheriff's Department were dispatched to the scene of a home burglary on Short Road near Rogersville. A witness, Phyllis Rook, provided a description of a man seen “near the back of the house” that matched that of Steven Bernard Wlodarz (“the Petitioner”). Tracking dogs led officers to the Petitioner's residence, which was located a short distance from the burglary. When the officers arrived, the Petitioner, armed with a shotgun, ordered them off his property. The officers left to obtain arrest warrants for attempted aggravated burglary, vandalism, and two counts of aggravated assault. By the time they returned to make an arrest, however, the Petitioner had barricaded himself in his house, forcing the officers to summon the tactical unit. After a standoff lasting several hours, the tactical unit used tear gas to force the Petitioner out of his house. A gunfight ensued. During the exchange of fire, Officer Gerald Gibson was shot and killed.

A Hawkins County grand jury indicted the Petitioner on a number of charges, including first degree premeditated murder. The State gave notice of its intention to pursue the death penalty. The State's case included ballistic evidence, an incriminating statement that the Petitioner made to police, and a note written by the Petitioner as tear gas was thrown into his house. In the note, he expressed his intention to kill an officer. During plea negotiations, the State offered the Petitioner a life sentence without the possibility of parole. On September 18, 2001, after discussing the State's plea offer with his family and the mitigation specialist who had been retained to assist in his defense, the Petitioner entered best interest guilty pleas ¹ to the charges of first degree premeditated murder, attempted first degree premeditated murder, two counts of aggravated assault, and one count of manufacturing a Schedule VI controlled substance. See North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 37, 91 S.Ct. 160, 27 L.Ed.2d 162 (1970); Dortch v. State, 705 S.W.2d 687, 689 (Tenn.Crim.App.1985).² The trial court imposed an effective sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

On September 12, 2002, the Petitioner filed a petition for post-conviction relief. He asserted that his guilty pleas had not been knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily entered and that his trial counsel had been ineffective. Specifically, the Petitioner alleged that his trial counsel failed to inform him of critical bullet fragment evidence before he entered the plea agreement. The Petitioner also claimed that he was taking medication that may have affected his ability to fully understand the consequences of his pleas. During the hearing on his petition for post-conviction relief, however, the Petitioner acknowledged that before he entered his pleas, he and his lead counsel had discussed the evidentiary importance of the bullet fragments removed from the body of the victim. He specifically acknowledged that he knew that the test results suggested that the fragments did not “perfectly” match the gun he had fired. Moreover, a motion filed on his behalf before his pleas included an acknowledgment that there were “no conclusive matches between bullet fragments found at the scene of this alleged offense and those found in the body of Officer Gibson” and that “several fragments have been sent to the FBI in order to attempt to find matches between the two groups.”

Based on the evidence presented at the hearing, the post-conviction court denied relief in 2002, concluding that the Petitioner had not been denied the effective assistance of counsel and that his guilty pleas had been knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily entered.³ The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, and this Court denied application for permission to appeal. Wlodarz v. State, No. E2002–02798–CCA–R3–PC, 2003 WL 22868267, at *3 (Tenn.Crim.App. Dec. 3, 2003), perm. app. denied, (Tenn. May 17, 2004). In 2005, the Petitioner filed a motion to reopen his petition for post-conviction relief, which was also denied. On appeal from that ruling, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the denial of relief. Wlodarz v. State, No. E2005–00438–CCA–R28–PC (Tenn.Crim.App. May 6, 2005 Order).

On December 17, 2007, the Petitioner filed a petition for writ of error coram nobis in the Criminal Court for Hawkins County,⁴ initially alleging that he was entitled to a new trial because he had discovered that the State did not actually send ballistic evidence to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) for analysis prior to his plea and because the inconclusive results may have made a difference in his willingness to enter the plea agreement. At the hearing on his petition, the Petitioner, after acknowledging that the FBI had in fact conducted tests prior to his pleas, altered his position, alleging that the State had withheld from him the exculpatory nature of the results.⁵ In response, the State asserted that all of the ballistic evidence was submitted to the Petitioner prior to his guilty pleas, and that these very issues had been addressed during the post-conviction proceedings. The State did not challenge the Petitioner's petition for writ of error coram nobis on the grounds that it was untimely or that the Petitioner had failed to exercise due care in finding and presenting the purported newly discovered evidence.

After tolling the statute of limitations on due process grounds, the trial court denied the petition, pointing out that in a motion filed in 2001, the Petitioner, who had previously sought further testing, acknowledged that there had been “no conclusive comparisons” of the bullet fragments. In consequence, the trial court determined that the ballistic reports were not “newly discovered evidence” as required by Tennessee Code Annotated section 40–26–105(b). Further, the trial court concluded that the ballistic evidence, even if newly discovered, did not undermine the Petitioner's guilty pleas, because the Petitioner entered the pleas knowingly and voluntarily.

The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the dismissal of the petition. Wlodarz v. State, No. E2008–02179–CCA–R3–CO, 2010 WL 1998766, at *5 (Tenn.Crim.App. May 19, 2010). While observing that coram nobis relief based on newly discovered evidence was available following the entry of a guilty plea, id. at *4, the Court of Criminal Appeals determined that the evidence was not “newly discovered” because the Petitioner “was well-aware of the inconclusive test results prior to his pleas, and the defense was ... prepared to cross-examine the State's witnesses about this matter ‘extensively’ [if necessary],” id. at *5.

This Court granted the Petitioner's application for permission to appeal and directed the parties to address the threshold question of whether an inmate whose conviction is based on a guilty plea, rather than the result of a bench trial or a jury verdict, may challenge his or her conviction through a petition for writ of error coram nobis based on newly discovered evidence.

II. Standard of Review

Determining whether a prisoner whose conviction is based on a guilty plea may subsequently challenge his or her conviction using a petition for a writ of error coram nobis requires this Court to construe Tennessee Code Annotated section 40–26–105(b). The construction of a statute is a question of law, which is reviewed de novo without any presumption of correctness. In re Estate of Tanner, 295 S.W.3d 610, 613 (Tenn.2009). When dealing with statutory interpretation, well-defined precepts apply. Our primary objective is to carry out the legislative intent without broadening or restricting the statute beyond its intended scope. Houghton v. Aramark Educ. Res., Inc., 90 S.W.3d 676, 678 (Tenn.2002). In construing legislative enactments, we presume that every word in a statute has meaning and purpose and should be given full effect if the obvious intention of the General Assembly is not violated by so doing. In re C.K.G., 173...