In two opinions filed today, the Supreme Court has clarified the meaning and purpose of Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 36.1, which sets out a procedure for challenging illegal sentences.
Illegal sentences are those that are not authorized by law or that directly conflict with the law. The Court explained that since Rule 36.1 was adopted in 2011, it has not expanded the scope of relief available for illegal sentence claims, but it differs from the procedure previously used to raise such claims in two key ways. First, Rule 36.1 permits the State and the defendant to bring illegal sentence claims, where only the defendant could bring such a claim under the prior procedure. Second, Rule 36.1 requires illegal sentence claims to be filed in the court that imposed the sentence, rather than in the court closest to where the defendant was incarcerated.
Despite these differences, the Court emphasized that Rule 36.1 does not expand the scope of relief available for illegal sentence claims. To obtain relief under Rule 36.1, a moving party must show that the challenged sentence is “illegal,” as described above, and that the challenged sentence has not expired.The Supreme Court explained that this expiration requirement limited the scope of relief under the prior procedure and was not changed by revisions to Rule 36.1, as some panels of the Court of Criminal Appeals have held.
Applying its holdings, the Supreme Court concluded that the defendant in State v. Wooden failed to show that his challenged sentence was an illegal sentence and that the defendant’s sentence in State v. Brown expired several years before he sought relief under Rule 36.1.The Supreme Court therefore affirmed the Court of Criminal Appeals judgments, upholding the trial court decisions denying Mr. Wooden’s and Mr. Brown’s Rule 36.1 motions.
Read the unanimous opinions in State v. Wooden and State v. Brown, authored by Justice Cornelia A. Clark.