Wright v. State

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF TENNESSEE

AT NASHVILLE

FILED
FOR PUBLICATION
February 1, 1999
Filed: February 1, 1999
Cecil W. Crowson
CHARLES WALTON WRIGHT, ) Appellate Court Clerk
)
Appellant, ) DAVIDSON CRIMINAL
)
)
Vs. ) HON. WALTER C. KURTZ,
) JUDGE
)
STATE OF TENNESSEE, )
)
Appellee. ) No. 01-S-01-9709-CR-00196

For Appellant: For Appellee:

Donald E. Dawson John Knox Walkup
Post-Conviction Defender Attorney General & Reporter
Nashville, Tennessee
Michael E. Moore
Solicitor General

Amy L. Tarkington
Assistant Attorney General
Nashville, Tennessee

At Trial:
Victor S. Johnson
District Attorney General

John Zimmerman
Assistant District Attorney
Nashville, Tennessee

OPINION

COURT OF CRIMINAL
APPEALS AFFIRMED. ANDERSON, C.J.
 We granted this appeal to determine whether the appellant’s due process rights

were violated when the lower courts dismissed his post conviction petition as time-

barred by the three-year statute of limitations since the asserted violation of Brady v.

Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S. Ct. 1194, 10 L. Ed. 2d 215 (1963), did not arise until after

expiration of the three-year statute of limitations.

The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of the petition

after concluding that the appellant’s interest in asserting and litigating the issue did not

outweigh the State’s interest in preserving final judgments and preventing the litigation

of stale claims.

We conclude that the exculpatory evidence issue was a “later-arising” claim in

that it did not arise until after the post-conviction statute of limitation began to run. We

further conclude, however, that the appellant’s interest in litigating the later-arising claim

at this stage of the proceedings did not outweigh the State’s interest in preserving final

judgments and preventing the litigation of stale claims. We therefore affirm the Court of

Criminal Appeals’ judgment.

BACKGROUND

In April of 1985, the appellant, Charles Walton W right, was convicted of two

counts of premeditated first degree murder. According to the evidence at trial, Wright

shot and killed two victims, Gerald Mitchell and Douglas Alexander, during the course of

a drug transaction. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for the killing of Mitchell and

to death by electrocution for the killing of Alexander. The convictions and sentences

were affirmed by this Court on direct appeal. State v. Wright, 756 S.W.2d 669 (Tenn.

1988), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 1034, 109 S. Ct. 848, 102 L. Ed. 2d 979 (1989). The

Court denied Wright’s petition for rehearing on August 29, 1988.

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 In May of 1989, Wright filed his first petition for post-conviction relief, which was

denied by the trial court after an evidentiary hearing. The Court of Criminal Appeals

affirmed. Wright v. State, No. 01C01-9105-CR-00149 (Tenn. Crim. App., Nashville,

Apr. 7, 1994). This Court denied Wright’s application for permission to appeal on

September 12, 1994, and the United States Supreme Court subsequently denied

Wright’s petition for certiorari, 513 U.S. 1163, 115 S. Ct. 1129, 130 L. Ed. 2d 1091

(1995).

Wright filed the present post-conviction petition on January 27, 1995,1 alleging, in

part, that the prosecution had violated his state and federal rights to due process by

withholding exculpatory evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.

Ct. 1194, 10 L. Ed. 2d 215 (1963). Among other things, Wright claimed the prosecution

suppressed evidence demonstrating that he had a mental illness; that he did not kill

Alexander; that other persons were at the scene of the killing; that a heated argument

had occurred at the scene; that Mitchell’s girlfriend had committed the killings after

discovering that Mitchell and Alexander were homosexual lovers; that Mitchell had a

“drug connection” in Nashville; and that the victims were engaged in drug trafficking with

two other individuals at the time of the shooting.

Although the three-year statute of limitations then applicable to post-conviction

suits had expired three years after his conviction became final, see Tenn. Code Ann.

§ 40-30-102 (1990), 2 Wright argued that the exculpatory evidence issue did not arise

until the decision in Capital Case Resource Center v. Woodall, No. 01A01-9104-CH-

00150 (Tenn. App., Nashville, Jan. 29, 1992). In that case, the Middle Section of the

1
This petition is actually the petitioner’s third. The second, filed pro se on August 29, 1991, was
dismissed by the trial court without a hearing. Although no appeal was filed at that time, the appellant
sought to resurrect that appeal in the present case. The Court of Criminal Appeals properly ruled it was
untimely and refused to review the issues therein.

2
Now c odified in T enn. Co de Ann . § 40-30 -202 (19 97), the sta tute of lim itations for p ost-
conviction under th e prese nt Post-C onviction P rocedu re Act is on e year.

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Court of Appeals held that police investigative files concerning a case under collateral

attack were not exempt from disclosure under the Tennessee Public Records Law.

The trial court dismissed the petition without a hearing because it was filed after

the three-year statute of limitations. Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-30-102. The Court of

Criminal Appeals agreed that the grounds for the exculpatory evidence were not

available until the decision in Woodall was released on January 29, 1992, yet held that

the suit was properly dismissed because Wright’s interest in having the issue heard did

not outweigh the State’s interest in preserving final judgments and preventing the

litigation of stale claims. We granted Wright’s application for permission to appeal and

now affirm.

ANALYSIS

At the time Wright filed this post-conviction suit in January of 1995,3 the Post-

Conviction Procedure Act provided:

[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 (emphasis added).

Applying this statute to this case, the three-year period began to run when this

Court denied Wright’s petition for rehearing of his direct appeal on August 12, 1988;

thus, Wright’s petition filed in January of 1995 was more than three years after the

expiration of the statute of limitations. W right, however, citing Burford v. State, 845

S.W.2d 204 (Tenn. 1992), argues that since the exculpatory evidence claim was

3
Because the petition was filed prior to May 10, 1995, the former Post-Conviction Procedure Act
applies in this case. Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 40-30-101 to -124 (1990) (repealed 1995) (now codified Tenn.
Code Ann. §§ 40 -30-201 to -222 (1997)).

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unavailable until the decision in Woodall, his case falls within an exception to the three-

year limitations period.

In Burford, the petitioner’s post-conviction suit in Trousdale County challenging

his sentencing as a persistent offender was filed after the statute of limitations; he

argued, however, that he could not raise the issue until prior convictions sustained in

Wilson County, which had been used to enhance his sentence in Trousdale County,

were set aside in a separate post-conviction suit. We recognized that the application of

the statute of limitations must comport with due process:

[B]efore a state may terminate a claim for failure to comply with
procedural requirements such as statutes of limitations, due process
requires that potential litigants be provided an opportunity for the
presentation of claims at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner.
The question, then is “whether a state’s policy reflected in the statute
affords a fair and reasonable opportunity for . . . bringing . . . suit.” In
other words, the test is whether the time period provides an applicant a
reasonable opportunity to have the claimed issue heard and determined.

Id. at 208 (citations omitted). Moreover, given the unusual procedural facts confronting

the petitioner, we concluded that “under the circumstances of a particular case,

application of the statute [did] not afford a reasonable opportunity” to litigate an issue.

Id.

In a later case we clarified Burford by recognizing that “due process prohibits the

strict application of the post-conviction statute of limitations to bar a petitioner’s claim

when the grounds for relief, whether legal or factual, arise after . . . the point at which

the limitations period would normally have begun to run.” Sands v. State, 903 S.W.2d

297, 301 (Tenn. 1995) (emphasis added). W e established the following framework:

(1) determine when the limitations period would normally have begun to
run; (2) determine whether the grounds for relief actually arose after the
limitations period would normally have commenced; and (3) if the grounds
are “later-arising,” determine if, under the facts of the case, a strict
application of the limitations period would effectively deny the petitioner a
reasonable opportunity to present the claim.

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Id. To determine whether a petitioner was denied a reasonable opportunity to present a

claim, a court must balance the liberty interest in collaterally attacking the constitutional

violations occurring during the conviction process against the State’s legitimate interest

in preventing the litigation of stale and fraudulent claims. Id.; see also Caldwell v. State,

917 S.W.2d 662 (Tenn. 1996) (also applying Burford and Sands analysis).

We employed this type of balancing analysis in Burford. With respect to the

State’s interest, we observed that there was nothing stale or fraudulent about the

petitioner’s claim, that there was no difficulty with the availability of witnesses or the

memories of witnesses, and that there was no problem with respect to a groundless

claim generating excessive costs. We further stressed “that the petitioner ha[d] a valid

claim to have his sentence reduced, and all the [post-conviction] court will have to do is

examine the record of the . . . proceedings.” 845 S.W.2d at 209. Finally we stressed

the significant liberty interest at stake to the petitioner:

[A]pplication of the statute . . . will deny [Burford] of a fundamental right. If
consideration of the petition is barred, Burford will be forced to serve a
persistent offender sentence that was enhanced by previous convictions
that no longer stand. As a result, Burford will be forced to serve an
excessive sentence in violation of his rights under the Eighth Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution, and Article I, § 16 of the Tennessee Constitution,
which, by definition, are fundamental rights entitled to heightened
protection.

Id. Thus, after concluding that Burford’s interest in raising and litigating the issue

outweighed the State’s interest, we held that application of the statute of limitations to

bar Burford’s petition violated due process. Id. at 209-10.

By contrast, in a 1996 case, the petitioner in Caldwell filed a post-conviction

petition in which he challenged an unlawful arrest.4 After concluding that Caldwell’s

4
Like Wright in the present case, Caldwell asserted that the issue was not available until after the
Cou rt of A ppe als’ W ood all decis ion ho lding t hat p olice in vest igative files w ere n ot ex em pt fro m th e Pu blic
Records Law.

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claim was a “later-arising” issue, we turned to the balancing test and contrasted the

State’s interest with that in Burford:

[I]t is beyond question that the State interests here are much stronger
than in Burford. With respect to the interest in preventing the litigation of
stale claims, we note that the events at issue here occurred almost fifteen
years ago. Because the officers involved will likely be called to testify
regarding the arrest and the ensuing events, there is a real danger that
their memories will have faded to such a degree as to make
reconstructing the events difficult or impossible. Moreover, there is the
possibility that the officers may not even be available to testify, another
concern voiced in Burford. Thus, all the dangers inherent in the litigation
of stale claims -- which the State has a legitimate interest in preventing --
appear to be present here.

917 S.W.2d at 666 (emphasis added). We also found that the nature of the right

asserted in Caldwell -- the right to suppress evidence derived from an unlawful arrest--

differed significantly from the right to be free from an excessive sentence asserted in

Burford:

The right at issue in Burford is a personal trial right of a defendant which
goes directly to the justice or integrity of the conviction or sentence. On
the other hand, the “right” to exclude evidence gathered as a result of an
unreasonable seizure, based as it is on the rationale of deterring police
misconduct, is not a personal trial right. And a violation of the
constitutional guarantees, if proven, does not necessarily result in a
reversal of the conviction.

917 S.W.2d at 667. Accordingly, we concluded that application of the three-year

statute of limitations did not deny Caldwell a reasonable opportunity to present the

pretextual arrest issue.

Applying this framework to the present case, we find that the three-year statute

of limitations began to run when this Court affirmed W right’s conviction and sentence

and denied his petition for rehearing on August 29, 1988. The Court of Appeals’

decision in Woodall, holding that police investigative files were not exempt from

disclosure under the Public Records Law, was released on January 29, 1992.

Accordingly, it appears that the exculpatory evidence issue was, in fact, later-arising,

under the analysis in Sands and Caldwell.

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 The critical inquiry is whether, under the facts of this case, application of the

three-year statute of limitations effectively denied Wright a “reasonable opportunity” to

raise this issue. In making this inquiry, we must balance Wright’s interest in collaterally

challenging his conviction by raising this constitutional issue against the State’s

legitimate interest in preserving the finality of judgments and preventing the litigation of

stale and fraudulent claims. 5

We initially observe that the right asserted by Wright -- the denial of due process

resulting from the prosecution’s suppression of exculpatory evidence -- is a personal

trial right directly relating to the justice or integrity of the conviction and sentence.

Brady, 373 U.S. at 87, 83 S. Ct. at 1197; State v. Spurlock, 874 S.W.2d 602, 609-10

(Tenn. Crim. App. 1993). It is, therefore, more similar to the liberty interest asserted in

Burford than the interest in Caldwell.

The other side of the scale, however, weighs heavily in favor of the legitimate

interests of the State. The post-conviction suit filed by Wright was filed ten years after

the commission of the offense; nearly six and one-half years after Wright’s conviction

became final; three and one-half years after the three-year post-conviction statute of

limitations expired; and nearly three years after the Court of Appeals decided in

Woodall that police investigative files were not exempt from the Public Records Act.

As in Caldwell, this passage of time is directly related to the manner and means

of litigating Wright’s issue. The availability of critical witnesses and their ability to recall

and relate details as to the alleged suppression of exculpatory evidence and the facts of

5
Although we have not addressed this specific issue, the Court of Criminal Appeals has drawn
different c onclusio ns from similar fa cts and circum stance s. E.g., W ooden v. State , 898 S.W.2d 752
(Tenn. Crim. App. 1994) (remanded for hearing to determine whether evidence was exculpatory and if so,
whether Burford excep tion applied ); Sam ple v. State , No. 02C01-9505-CR-00131 and No. 02C01-9505-
CR-00139 (Tenn. Crim. App., Jackson, Sept. 30, 1996) (applying Burford exception and remanding for
further pr oceed ings on e xculpato ry evidence ); Arm strong v. S tate, No. 01C01-9311-CR-00403 (Tenn.
Crim. App., Nashville, Dec. 8, 1994) (applying Burford exception and remanding for proceedings on
exculpa tory evidenc e issue) . But see Porterfield v. State , No. 02C 01-961 1-CR -00388 (Tenn . Crim. A pp.,
Jack son, Ap r. 2, 1997) (rejecting la ter-arising e xculpato ry evidence issue an d affirm ing dism issal of po st-
conviction petition).

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this offense are immediate and significant concerns. Wright’s mere allegation that the

prosecution suppressed exculpatory evidence does not warrant relief. Instead, Wright

must establish that favorable evidence existed, that it was material to the defense, and

that it was, in fact, suppressed by the prosecution. Accordingly, as in Caldwell, raising

this issue at this stage of the proceedings, would require extensive, possibly expensive

litigation. Cf., Burford, 847 S.W.2d at 209 (raising the issue requires trial judge to

simply examine the record of the proceedings).

Wright argues that the three-year statute of limitations contained in the former

Post-Conviction Act should be applied to later-arising issues. See, e.g., Burford, 847

S.W.2d at 210 (Daughtrey, J., concurring). The State, on the other hand, asserting that

Wright did not act promptly in raising this issue once having the benefit of the decision

in Woodall, invites the Court to apply a one-year statute of limitations to all later-arising

claims. We agree that the timeliness of raising a later-arising issue is a relevant factor;

however, as in prior cases, we decline to apply a bright-line period of time in which to

raise later-arising issues be it one year or three. Instead, our rule requires that each

case be examined under the analysis set forth above and in light of the specific facts of

the case.6

Accordingly, we conclude that the post-conviction suit was properly dismissed,

and we affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals.

CONCLUSION

We conclude that the petitioner’s issue regarding the suppression of exculpatory

evidence is a later-arising claim. We further conclude, however, that the petitioner was

not denied a reasonable opportunity to have the issue heard and litigated. Accordingly,

we affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals.

6
The cases previously decided by the Court of Criminal Appeals with respect to similar issues,
therefore, are limited to the facts and circumstances presented in those cases.

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 Costs of appeal are assessed against the appellant, Charles Walton Wright, for

which execution may issue if necessary.

____________________________________
RILEY ANDERSON, CHIEF JUSTICE

CONCUR:
Drowota, Birch, and Holder, JJ.

Barker, J., not participating

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