Case Title: State v. Bomar

Citation: 376 S.W.2d 446

Docket Number: 

State: tennessee

Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Date: 1964-03-05T00:00:00Z

Document:
376 S.W.2d 446 (1964) STATE of Tennessee ex rel. Robert James VES, Plaintiff in Error, v. Lynn BOMAR, Warden, Tennessee State Penitentiary, Defendant in Error. Supreme Court of Tennessee. March 5, 1964. *447 Robert James Ves, pro se. George F. McCanless, Attorney General, Henry C. Foutch, Edgar P. Calhoun, Assistant Attorneys General, for defendant in error. HOLMES, Justice. This is a habeas corpus case in which the petitioner, who is now confined in the State Penitentiary, has appealed from the judgment of the Trial Court dismissing his petition for habeas corpus after a full hearing in that Court. The case is before this Court on the technical record in the habeas corpus proceeding. The record discloses that on May 10, 1947 the plaintiff in error, hereinafter referred to as petitioner, was convicted of grand larceny in the Criminal Court of Knox County and sentenced to serve not less than three years nor more than five years in the State Penitentiary. On April 13, 1949 this sentence was commuted to petit larceny and the petitioner was paroled. Thereafter, in February 1950, he was returned to the State Penitentiary as a parole violator. While he was out on parole, petitioner committed two separate felonies, namely, housebreaking and larceny. On June 7, 1950 he pleaded guilty to both of these offenses and was sentenced to serve three years for each offense in the State Penitentiary, the sentences to run consecutively. He was discharged from the State Penitentiary on about March 7, 1954. On May 14, 1955 he was convicted in the Criminal Court of Knox County of the offense of burglary in the third degree and also for being an habitual criminal. This last conviction was appealed to this Court on the technical record. The conviction was affirmed at the October 1955 term of this Court. By the present appeal, petitioner first contends that the conviction of April 19, 1947, which was prior to the 1950 Amendments to the Habitual Criminal Act, T.C.A. secs. 40-2801 to 40-2807, cannot be counted as a prior conviction because to do so would make the statute ex post facto. This same contention was made in McCummings v. State, 175 Tenn. 309, 134 S.W.2d 151, and in Conrad v. State, 202 Tenn. 36, 302 S.W.2d 60. In each of these cases such contention was held to be without merit. In the Conrad case, at page 37 of 202 Tenn., at page 60 of 302 S.W.2d, the Court stated: The United States Supreme Court passed upon this same question in Gryger v. Burke, 334 U.S. 728, at page 732 of its opinion, 68 S. Ct. 1256, at page 1258, 92 L. Ed. 1683, in which the Court, stated: See also 25 Am. Jur., Habitual Criminals, Sec. 5, Page 263. The petitioner next contends that he was denied due process of law because he was indicted as an habitual criminal before he was tried for his fourth felony in May 1955. There is no requirement in the Tennessee habitual criminal statutes, T.C.A. § 40-2801 et seq., that the indictment as an habitual criminal must be returned after a fourth conviction. These statutes define an habitual criminal as "[a]ny person who has either been three (3) times convicted within this state of felonies" etc. In no sense was the petitioner denied due process of law by reason of the matters complained of in this assignment. See Beeler v. State, 206 Tenn. 160, 332 S.W.2d 203. By his third assignment of error, petitioner asserts: The record before us on this appeal does not show how the criminal case was tried in May 1955. By this assignment of error, petitioner seeks to make a collateral attack upon the validity of the judgment in the criminal case. In State ex rel. Holbrook v. Bomar, 211 Tenn. 243, 364 S.W.2d 887, this Court stated: Petitioner next contends that because his 1947 conviction for grand larceny was later commuted to petit larceny that offense does not come within the purview of T.C.A. § 40-2801 et seq., and cannot be counted as a prior conviction. While the question presented by this assignment of error does not appear to have been passed upon by this Court, it has been before the courts in a number of states. Many of these cases are collected in 31 A.L.R.2d 1186. In People v. Biggs, 9 Cal2d 508, 71 P.2d 214, 215, 116 A.L.R. 205, in passing upon this question, the California Court stated, at pages 217, 218 of 71 P.2d: In Wharton's Criminal Law & Procedure, 1957 Ed., Vol. 5, Sec. 2219, Page 439, it is stated: In Murray v. Hand, 187 Kan. 308, 356 P.2d 814, the Court at page 815 of its opinion stated: In Green v. Commonwealth, Ky., 281 S.W.2d 637, 639, the Kentucky Court, in passing upon the question raised by this assignment of error, stated: In accordance with the holdings of the overwhelming majority of jurisdictions that have passed upon this question, we hold that the fact that petitioner's 1947 conviction was commuted to petit larceny does not prevent that conviction for grand larceny from being counted as a prior conviction under our habitual criminal act. The fifth assignment of error is: Of course, nothing appears in the record before the Court with reference to the matters complained of by this assignment. It is sufficient to state that the fact that some felons go unpunished is not a legal reason for releasing those who are convicted. *450 By his sixth assignment of error petitioner states: This precise question was passed upon by this Court adversely to the contention of the petitioner in State ex rel. Goss v. Bomar, 209 Tenn. 406, 354 S.W.2d 243, in which the Court stated: The offenses to which the petitioner in this case pleaded guilty on June 7, 1950 were separate offenses, committed at separate times, and, as expressly held in the Goss case, constituted two convictions under T.C.A. § 40-2801. This assignment of error is overruled. The seventh assignment of error is: In just what particular petitioner contends his indictment as an habitual criminal was improperly drawn does not appear. By this assignment, petitioner makes a collateral attack upon the judgment in that case because of an alleged irregularity, which may not be done in a proceeding of this type. State ex rel. Holbrook v. Bomar, supra. By his eighth assignment of error: In the Boyd case, the Court held that the Tennessee habitual criminal act in its original form as enacted in 1939 was unconstitutional. In 1950 the act was amended and re-enacted by the Legislature in the 1950 Code Supplement. In the opinion of the United States District Court in the Boyd case, it is stated: The present habitual criminal act, which was the act in force at the time petitioner was tried and convicted in 1955, is not subject to the same constitutional objection that existed in the earlier act passed upon by the courts in the Boyd case. When the Legislature amended and re-enacted the habitual criminal statute in the 1950 Code Supplement, the matters which rendered the old act unconstitutional were removed from the statute. The act under which petitioner was convicted in the present case is constitutional and valid. Petitioner's ninth assignment of error is: By this assignment, petitioner contends he is entitled to have the writ of habeas corpus sustained because the appeal from his conviction as an habitual criminal came before this Court on the technical record without a bill of exceptions. The record before us in the present case does not show why a bill of exceptions was not filed in the criminal case. Petitioner does not contend that he is not the person who was convicted in each of the previous convictions relied upon by the prosecution as the basis of the conviction under the habitual criminal law. There is nothing in this *451 record to indicate that the detention authorities in any way interfered with petitioner's appeal from his conviction as an habitual criminal. In an annotation in 19 A.L.R.2d 789, at page 799, it is stated: On the record before us, we concur in the finding of the Trial Judge "that none of the Constitutional rights of the petitioner, Robert James Ves, have been violated." It results that the assignments of error are overruled and the judgment of the Trial Court is affirmed.