Marico Finnie v. State of Tennessee

The petitioner, Marico Finnie, appeals from the post-conviction court's order granting him partial post-conviction relief in the form of a delayed appeal from his multiple aggravated rape, aggravated robbery, and facilitation of aggravated rape convictions. He argues that because his successful post-conviction claim was based on appellate counsel's ineffective assistance in not raising meritorious issues in his direct appeal, and he never requested a delayed appeal, the court instead should have vacated his convictions and remanded for new trials. The State agrees that a delayed appeal is not the appropriate avenue of relief but contends that appellate counsel's deficiency resulted in prejudice only with respect to the consecutive sentencing imposed and in two of the aggravated rape convictions where the State failed to make a proper election of offenses. The State, therefore, argues that the petitioner should be afforded new trials for the two aggravated rape convictions as well as a new sentencing hearing for all the convictions. We agree with the State that a delayed appeal is not the appropriate relief but disagree with its contention that the petitioner suffered prejudice in only two of his rape cases as a result of counsel's deficient performance in failing to raise the election issue on appeal. We further disagree with both the petitioner's and the State's position that the trial court failed to make sufficient findings in support of the imposition of consecutive sentencing or that counsel was ineffective for failing to raise this issue on appeal. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the post-conviction court in part, vacate the petitioner's convictions in indictment numbers 00-10546, 00-10542, 00-10554, and 00-10545, and remand for new trials for those offenses.