IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE
AT KNOXVILLE FILED
AUGUST 1998 SESSION
September 23, 1998
Cecil Crowson, Jr.
Appellate C ourt Clerk
THOMAS RAY DYER, )
)
Appellant, ) No. 03C01-9712-CR-00515
)
) Knox County
v. )
) Honorable Richard Baumgartner, Judge
)
STATE OF TENNESSEE, ) (Post-Conviction)
)
Appellee. )
For the Appellant: For the Appellee:
Mark E. Stevens John Knox Walkup
District Public Defender Attorney General of Tennessee
and and
John Halstead Clinton J. Morgan
Assistant Public Defender Assistant Attorney General of Tennessee
1209 Euclid Avenue 425 Fifth Avenue North
Knoxville, TN 37921 Nashville, TN 37243-0493
(AT TRIAL)
Randall E. Nichols
Mark E. Stevens District Attorney General
District Public Defender and
and Marsha Selecman
Paula R. Voss Assistant District Attorney General
John Halstead City-County Building
Assistant Public Defenders Knoxville, TN 37902
1209 Euclid Avenue
Knoxville, TN 37921
(ON APPEAL)
OPINION FILED:____________________
AFFIRMED
Joseph M. Tipton
Judge
OPINION
The petitioner, Thomas Ray Dyer, appeals as of right from the Knox
County Criminal Court’s order dismissing his petition for post-conviction relief as
untimely filed. The petitioner asserts that his illiteracy should serve as a basis for
waiving the statute of limitations. We disagree.
The petitioner was convicted on June 13, 1988, upon guilty pleas, of
second degree burglary, grand larceny, and attempting to introduce drugs into a county
jail, and received an effective sentence of twenty-one years. He filed his petition for
post-conviction relief on March 30, 1995, asserting various constitutional violations.
The petition contains no allegation about why it was not filed earlier. It has not been
amended by counsel. 1
After hearing arguments from counsel and unsworn statements by the
petitioner relative to his claimed illiteracy, the trial court dismissed the petition without
an evidentiary hearing because the then applicable statute of limitations of three years
from the end of the convicting cases had already run. It stated that the fact that a
petitioner was illiterate would not toll the running of the statute of limitations.
The petitioner acknowledges that this court has previously stated illiteracy
and personal ignorance are not sufficient grounds for avoiding the running of the
statute. See Bernard Nelson v. State, No. 01C01-9212-CC-00375, Montgomery County
(Tenn. Crim. App. Nov. 18, 1993); see also Raymond Dean Willis v. State, No. 01C01-
9211-CR-00359, Davidson County (Tenn. Crim. App. Oct. 21, 1993), app. denied
1
Ordinarily, a petition that shows on its face that it was filed after the statute of limitations
has run and fails to allege adequate grounds to toll the running of the statute is subject to dismissal upon
the pleadings without any hearing. Such was not done in this case, with the trial court listening to an issue
not raised by the plead ings.
2
(Tenn. Mar. 7, 1994). (Ignorance of existence of statute of limitation does not toll
running of the statute.) He urges us, though, to reconsider and to hold that an inmate’s
ignorance of the law, when caused by illiteracy, constitutes sufficient cause to waive the
limitation period.
We do not believe that this case comes to us in a procedural or
substantive posture that would warrant any change in our view of the law. The
judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
_______________________________
Joseph M. Tipton, Judge
CONCUR:
____________________________
Joe G. Riley, Judge
_____________________________
Thomas T. Woodall, Judge
3