Case Title: Ex parte Deborah R. Tisdale. PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS (In re: Deborah R. Tisdale v. State of Alabama) (Covington Circuit Court: CC-20-312; Criminal Appeals: CR-21-0174).

Citation: 

Docket Number: SC-2023-0122

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 2023-05-26T00:00:00Z

Document:
Rel: May 26, 2023 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern 
Reporter.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 
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SUPREME COURT OF ALABAMA 
 
OCTOBER TERM, 2022-2023 
 
_________________________ 
 
SC-2023-0122 
_________________________ 
 
Ex parte Deborah R. Tisdale 
 
 PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI  
TO THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS  
 
(In re: Deborah R. Tisdale  
 
v.  
 
State of Alabama)  
 
(Covington Circuit Court: CC-20-312;  
Court of Criminal Appeals: CR-21-0174) 
 
 
 
 
 
SC-2023-0122 
2 
 
 
BRYAN, Justice. 
 
WRIT DENIED.  NO OPINION.  
 
Shaw and Wise, JJ., concur. 
 
Bryan, J., concurs specially, with opinion, which Sellers, 
Mendheim, Stewart, and Mitchell, JJ., join.  
 
Parker, C.J., dissents, with opinion, which Cook, J., joins. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
SC-2023-0122 
3 
 
BRYAN, Justice (concurring specially). 
 
In rejecting Deborah R. Tisdale's interpretation of § 13A-5-4(b), Ala. 
Code 1975, the Court of Criminal Appeals held that the Covington Circuit 
Court's judgment is supported by (1) the application of the disjunctive-
negative-proof rule to § 13A-5-4(b) and (2) the application of the principle 
of interpreting statutes in pari materia.  Tisdale v. State, [Ms. CR-21-
0174, Dec. 16, 2022] ___ So. 3d ___  (Ala. Crim. App. 2022).  In her 
certiorari petition, Tisdale correctly asserts that the first holding, 
concerning the application of the disjunctive-negative-proof rule, 
presents a material question of first impression for this Court, and I 
agree with Chief Justice Parker that the Court of Criminal Appeals 
incorrectly applied that rule.   However, that first holding does not 
present a material question "requiring decision" by this Court, which is 
the requirement for granting a certiorari petition under Rule 39(a)(1)(C), 
Ala. R. App. P. (allowing review of "decisions where a material question 
requiring decision is one of first impression for the Supreme Court of 
Alabama").  This is so because Tisdale completely omits any discussion 
of the second holding reached by the Court of Criminal Appeals, i.e., that 
the circuit court's judgment is supported by the application of the 
SC-2023-0122 
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principle of interpreting statutes in pari materia.  Because Tisdale's 
petition omits any discussion of the second holding, the petition fails to 
demonstrate any probability of merit, i.e., that the Court of Criminal 
Appeals committed reversible error.   See Rule 39(f), Ala. R. App. P.  ("If 
the Supreme Court, upon preliminary consideration, concludes that there 
is a probability of merit in the petition and that the writ should issue, the 
Court shall so order ....").  Unless both of the holdings of the Court of 
Criminal Appeals are erroneous, this Court would have to affirm that 
court's decision.   See, e.g., Soutullo v. Mobile Cnty., 58 So. 3d 733, 739 
(Ala. 2010) ("Because the [appellants] have pretermitted discussion of 
one of the two grounds forming the basis for the [judgment as a matter of 
law], we pretermit discussion of the other ground, and we affirm the 
judgment.").  Accordingly, I concur in the decision to deny the petition.   
 
Sellers, Mendheim, Stewart, and Mitchell, JJ., concur.  
 
 
 
 
 
SC-2023-0122 
5 
 
PARKER, Chief Justice (dissenting). 
 
Deborah R. Tisdale was convicted of violating a statute that 
provides a punishment of a maximum $50 fine. Yet she was sentenced to 
90 days' imprisonment, and the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed that 
sentence based on other, more general statutes about misdemeanors. I 
dissent from this Court's denial of certiorari as to the question whether 
the statute that Tisdale violated allows imprisonment.  
Section 3-1-28, Ala. Code 1975, provides that owners of animals 
that die in their possession or custody must bury or burn them within 24 
hours. The statute provides that anyone who violates it "shall be guilty 
of a misdemeanor and, on conviction, shall be fined not more than 
$50.00." Id. Tisdale was convicted of violating this statute by failing to 
bury a dead horse within 24 hours of its death. The Covington Circuit 
Court sentenced her to 90 days' imprisonment, suspended the sentence, 
and placed her on unsupervised probation for 2 years.  
Tisdale appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals, arguing that her 
90-day sentence was unauthorized by § 3-1-28, the dead-animal statute. 
That court affirmed the sentence. Tisdale v. State, [Ms. CR-21-0174, Dec. 
16, 2022] ___ So. 3d. ___, ___ (Ala. Crim. App. 2022). The court held that, 
SC-2023-0122 
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although the dead-animal statute contains no reference to imprisonment, 
the statute must be read in light of the following more general 
misdemeanor statutes: 
"Any offense defined outside [Title 13A] which is declared by 
law to be a misdemeanor without specification as to 
classification or punishment is punishable as a Class C 
misdemeanor." 
 
§ 13A-5-4(b). 
"Sentences for misdemeanors shall be a definite term of 
imprisonment ..., within the following limitations: 
 
".... 
 
"... For a Class C misdemeanor, not more than three 
months." 
 
§ 13A-5-7(a)(3). 
"Unless otherwise expressly provided or unless the context 
otherwise requires, the provisions of [Title 13A, Chapter 1,] 
shall govern the construction of and punishment for any 
offense defined outside [Title 13A] ...." 
 
§ 13A-1-7(b). 
"Unless different meanings are expressly specified in 
subsequent provisions of [Title 13A], the following terms 
shall have the following meanings: 
 
".... 
 
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"... Misdemeanor. An offense for which a sentence to a 
term of imprisonment not in excess of one year may be 
imposed." 
 
§ 13A-1-2(9). 
"Every person convicted of a misdemeanor ... shall be 
sentenced by the court to: 
 
"(1) Imprisonment ...; or 
 
"(2) Pay a fine ...; or 
 
"(3) Both such imprisonment and fine." 
 
§ 13A-5-2(c). 
In seeking certiorari, Tisdale argues that the Court of Criminal 
Appeals' interpretation of the dead-animal statute presents a question of 
first impression for our Court: whether the statute allows imprisonment. 
She is correct, and this question merits review. 
 
In concluding that imprisonment is an allowed punishment for 
violation of the dead-animal statute, the Court of Criminal Appeals first 
relied on § 13A-5-4(b). That statute provides that any offense defined 
outside Title 13A that is "declared by law to be a misdemeanor without 
specification as to classification or punishment is punishable as a Class 
C misdemeanor." (Emphasis added.) (Class C misdemeanors are 
punishable by imprisonment. § 13A-5-7(a)(3).) In context, the natural, 
SC-2023-0122 
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ordinary meaning of "without specification as to classification or 
punishment" is that the offense does not specify either a classification or 
a punishment. Put another way, an offense does not come within this 
catchall provision if the offense either specifies a classification or 
specifies a punishment.  
 
But the Court of Criminal Appeals concluded the opposite -- that 
"without specification as to classification or punishment" means that an 
offense comes within the catchall provision unless the offense specifies 
both a classification and a punishment. The court reasoned that the "or" 
in "classification or punishment" creates a disjunctive negative proof: 
"The phrase at issue illustrates what Scalia and Garner 
label 'the disjunctive negative proof.' [Antonin Scalia & Bryan 
A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 
120 (Thomson/West 2012).] They offer this hypothetical 
example: 
 
"'To be eligible for citizenship, you must prove that 
you have not (1) been convicted of murder; (2) been 
convicted of manslaughter; or (3) been convicted of 
embezzlement. 
 
"'An applicant proves #3 -- that he has never been 
convicted of embezzlement -- but fails to prove that 
he has not been convicted of both murder and 
manslaughter. Is he eligible? (No.) Is the 
requirement that he not have done one of these 
things, or that he have done none? (He must have 
done none.)' 
SC-2023-0122 
9 
 
"Id. at 120. 
 
"Applying this principle to § 13A-5-4(b), the phrase 
'without specification as to classification or punishment' 
means that § 13A-5-4(b) applies to any misdemeanor defined 
outside Title 13A that does not include a specification as to 
both classification and punishment. Thus, § 13A-5-4(b) 
applies to a misdemeanor offense outside Title 13A if: (1) the 
provision includes a punishment but does not classify that 
offense; (2) the provision classifies that misdemeanor but does 
not include a punishment; (3) the provision includes neither a 
classification nor a punishment." 
 
Tisdale, ___ So. 3d at ___.  
There are several problems with that reasoning. First, the court 
correctly identified the syntactic phenomenon as disjunctive negative 
proof but then incorrectly applied it. Scalia and Garner's example is 
summarized by them as: "To be eligible, you must prove that you have 
not done A, B, or C." Scalia & Garner, supra. Under that example, if you 
have done any one of A, B, or C, then the condition ("you have not done 
A, B, or C") is not satisfied, and the result ("eligible") does not obtain. 
Similarly, under § 13A-5-4(b), if an offense statute specifies either 
classification or punishment, then the condition ("without specification 
as to classification or punishment") is not satisfied, and the result 
("punishable as a Class C misdemeanor") does not obtain. In both 
SC-2023-0122 
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instances, the "or" functions the same within the negative multifaceted 
condition: If any one of the facets is true, the condition is not satisfied. 
The Court of Criminal Appeals may have been distracted by the 
words "you must prove" in Scalia and Garner's example. That language 
is merely part of the illustration; it has no effect on the syntactic 
phenomenon itself. "[Y]ou must prove" makes sense in an example of a 
statute that contains a burden of persuasion. But here, the statute 
contains no burden as part of the condition; it merely provides the 
condition in the abstract -- "without specification as to classification or 
punishment." Thus, nothing about the words "you must prove" affects the 
parallel between Scalia and Garner's example and § 13A-5-4(b) that I 
have explained above.  
 
Moreover, the Court of Criminal Appeals' holding is contradicted by 
the official commentary to § 13A-5-4, which explains: 
 
"Subsection (a) makes all felonies defined outside the 
Criminal Code [i.e., Title 13A,] for which no punishment is 
provided Class C felonies, the lowest category. Subsection (b) 
similarly deals with misdemeanors. Most existing crimes 
were covered in Title 13, Alabama Code of 1975, but most 
were repealed upon the effective date of the Criminal Code. 
To the extent that there are some crimes now found outside 
former Title 13 which have not been subsumed by the 
Criminal Code and which are not repealed, it is desirable that 
SC-2023-0122 
11 
 
they be incorporated into the Criminal Code, at least those 
which specify no particular punishment." 
 
§ 13A-5-4, Commentary (emphasis added). This language clarifies that 
the statute was not designed to classify offenses that already specify a 
punishment. Instead, if an offense specifies a "particular punishment," 
regardless of whether it specifies a classification, the catchall provision 
of § 13A-5-4(b) does not apply.  
Further, as alluded to by the commentary, § 13A-5-4 contains 
substantially identical catchall language classifying felonies: "Any 
offense defined outside [Title 13A] which is declared by law to be a felony 
without specification of its classification or punishment is punishable as 
a Class C felony." § 13A-5-4(a). In a prior case, the Court of Criminal 
Appeals, as it did here with the misdemeanor provision, held that § 13A-
5-4(a) applies unless both classification and punishment are specified, 
see Cade v. State, 491 So. 2d 1075, 1076 (Ala. Crim. App. 1986). But this 
Court rejected that interpretation and overruled Cade. Ex parte 
Chambers, 522 So. 2d 313 (Ala. 1987). We held that the felony catchall 
provision did not apply to a statute outside Title 13A that specified a 
punishment. Id. at 315. And we specifically relied on the official 
commentary quoted above. Id. It is incongruous indeed for the Court of 
SC-2023-0122 
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Criminal Appeals to interpret the "or" in subdivision (a) of § 13A-5-4 
differently from the "or" in the substantially identical phrase in 
subdivision (b). I see no reason why what we said in Chambers would 
apply to one half of the statute but not the other. Criminal defendants 
now face a situation in which two subdivisions of § 13A-5-4, containing 
substantially identical language, have essentially opposite meanings. 
The rule of law cannot long sustain such a tension.  
The Court of Criminal Appeals' interpretation of the misdemeanor 
catchall provision, § 13A-5-4(b), also leads to absurd results. Under that 
interpretation, an offense that does the opposite of the dead-animal 
statute -- specifies a classification but not a punishment -- is also 
classified as a Class C misdemeanor. Thus, a hypothetical offense statute 
outside Title 13A that specifies only that the offense is a Class A 
misdemeanor would create, unbeknownst even to the careful reader, a 
Class C misdemeanor.  
As an alternative rationale, the Court of Criminal Appeals relied on 
the principle of interpreting statutes in pari materia. "Where possible, 
statutes should be resolved in favor of each other to form one harmonious 
plan and give uniformity to the law." League of Women Voters v. Renfro, 
SC-2023-0122 
13 
 
292 Ala. 128, 131, 290 So. 2d 167, 169 (1974). The court attempted to read 
the dead-animal statute together with three other statutes. Section 13A-
1-7(b) provides that, "[u]nless otherwise expressly provided or unless the 
context otherwise requires, the provisions of [Title 13A, Chapter 1,] shall 
govern the construction of and punishment for any offense defined 
outside [Title 13A]." Section 13A-1-2(9), in turn, generally defines a 
misdemeanor as an offense imprisonable for up to one year. In addition, 
§ 13A-5-2(c) provides: "Every person convicted of a misdemeanor ... shall 
be sentenced by the court to: (1) Imprisonment ...; or (2) Pay a fine ...; or 
(3) Both such imprisonment and fine." The Court of Criminal Appeals 
reasoned that those other statutes characterize a "misdemeanor" as an 
offense that allows imprisonment, so "misdemeanor" in the dead-animal 
statute must be read as allowing imprisonment as a punishment.  
But none of those three other statutes requires that interpretation. 
Although § 13A-1-2(9) defines a "misdemeanor" as an imprisonable 
offense, § 13A-1-7(b) provides that Chapter 1 of Title 13A governs 
offenses that are outside Title 13A "[u]nless otherwise expressly provided 
or unless the context otherwise requires." In the dead-animal statute, a 
"misdemeanor" is not an imprisonable offense because that statute 
SC-2023-0122 
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expressly provides otherwise: It provides only for punishment by a $50 
fine. § 3-1-28 ("Any person violating this section ... shall be guilty of a 
misdemeanor and, on conviction, shall be fined not more than $50.00."). 
Similarly, in that statute a "misdemeanor" is not an imprisonable offense 
because the "context" of the word "misdemeanor" -- the immediately 
succeeding language providing only for a $50 fine -- "otherwise requires."  
The third other statute relied on by the Court of Criminal Appeals 
is similarly unavailing. Section 13A-5-2(c) provides that a misdemeanor 
is punishable by imprisonment. But that statute is in Chapter 5 of Title 
13A, not Chapter 1. So its misdemeanor-punishment provision cannot be 
applied to offenses outside Title 13A via § 13A-1-7(b), because the latter 
statute makes only Chapter 1 applicable to non-Title 13A offenses. 
Moreover, § 13A-5-2(c)'s general allowance of imprisonment for 
misdemeanors, standing alone, cannot override the dead-animal statute's 
allowance only of a fine for the specific misdemeanor of failing to bury a 
dead animal. See Scalia & Garner, supra, at 183-89 (general/specific 
canon). 
Finally, to the extent that any ambiguity remains about the allowed 
punishment for violation of the dead-animal statute, the rule of lenity 
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resolves it. "'[C]riminal statutes are to be strictly construed in favor 
of those 
persons 
sought 
to 
be 
subjected 
to 
their 
operation, 
i.e., defendants.'" Ex parte Bertram, 884 So. 2d 889, 891 (Ala. 2003) 
(emphasis and citation omitted). "The rule that penal laws are to be 
construed strictly, is perhaps not much less old than construction itself. 
It is founded on the tenderness of the law for the rights of individuals ...." 
United States v. Wiltberger, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.) 76, 95 (1820) (Marshall, 
C.J.). Here, resolving any ambiguity in favor of the defendant means 
that, for violation of the dead-animal statute, the only punishment 
allowed is a fine.  
 
Accordingly, the question of first impression raised by Tisdale -- 
whether the dead-animal statute, § 3-1-28, allows punishment by 
imprisonment -- warrants this Court's review. The importance of this 
question extends far beyond this obscure offense. Until the Court of 
Criminal Appeals' interpretation of § 13A-5-4(b)'s catchall provision is 
corrected, it will allow imprisonment for every misdemeanor offense 
outside Title 13A that does not specify both classification and 
punishment, even misdemeanors that specify a punishment other than 
SC-2023-0122 
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imprisonment. For the reasons I have explained, that interpretation is 
untenable. 
 
The special concurrence agrees that the question here is one of first 
impression regarding the interpretation of the catchall provision, § 13A-
5-4(b), and that the Court of Criminal Appeals incorrectly interpreted 
that provision. But the special concurrence argues that this aspect of the 
question does not "'requir[e] decision,'" and that Tisdale does not 
demonstrate a "'probability of merit,'" because she does not challenge the 
Court of Criminal Appeals' alternative rationale based on the principle 
of interpreting statues in pari materia. ___ So. 3d at ___ (quoting Rule 
39(a)(1)(C), (f), Ala. R. App. P.). In my view, that omission by Tisdale does 
not affect the reviewability of the lower court's application of the catchall 
provision. 
 
In certiorari review of questions of first impression, this Court 
fulfills an important constitutional role, as "the highest court of the 
state," "to issue such remedial writs or orders as may be necessary to give 
[this Court] general supervision and control of courts of inferior 
jurisdiction," Art. VI, § 140(a), (b)(2), Ala. Const. 2022; see § 12-2-7(3), 
Ala. Code 1975 (containing similar language). An integral part of this 
SC-2023-0122 
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Court's role, "within the structure of the Alabama Unified Judicial 
System, ... is to 'say what the law is' for the benefit of lower courts, 
attorneys, and the public." Ex parte Self, [Ms. 1200431, Sept. 10, 2021] 
___ So. 3d ___, ___ (Ala. 2021) (Parker, C.J., concurring specially) 
(citation omitted). 
 
When a question is one of first impression for this Court, that 
means there is no prior on-point decision from this Court. Thus, if a court 
of appeals has decided the question in an opinion, that opinion is binding 
on trial courts throughout the State. In this context, then, the primary 
purpose of certiorari is to promote the correctness of Alabama courts' 
application of the law. Therefore, if a petitioner seeking first-impression 
certiorari makes a sufficient showing that the appeals court's opinion is 
wrong in one of its holdings, and that holding is likely to have significant 
application to future lower-court cases, then we ought to review that 
holding. Even if the petitioner, for reasons separate from that challenged 
holding, might not ultimately obtain our reversal of the appeals court's 
judgment, that should not avert us from reviewing that holding. To 
decline to review a first-impression issue because another issue might be 
SC-2023-0122 
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ultimately dispositive is to miss the main, law-correcting purpose of this 
ground for certiorari. 
 
This purpose of first-impression certiorari makes it different from 
ordinary appellate review. In an appeal to this Court, we review a trial 
court's decision that has no binding effect on anyone other than the 
parties. Thus, we properly prioritize the effect that our analysis of trial-
court error will have on the result of the case. If an error did not affect 
the ultimate correctness of the trial court's judgment -- i.e., was harmless 
-- then the judgment must be affirmed, see Greene v. Thompson, 554 So. 
2d 376, 381 (Ala. 1989), and we often do so without an opinion. Similarly, 
if an appellant does not challenge each ground of the trial court's decision, 
then the appellant fails to meet its burden to show that any error was 
harmful, cf. Fogarty v. Southworth, 953 So. 2d 1225, 1231-32 (Ala. 2006), 
and we likewise routinely affirm without an opinion. In those appeal 
situations, there is nothing for us to correct but a trial court's 
nonprecedential error that has not been shown to have harmed anyone, 
so correcting it is ordinarily not a good use of this Court's resources.1 But 
 
1Notably, the special concurrence relies on a direct-appeal case in 
its discussion of waiver. See ___ So. 3d at ___ (citing Soutullo v. Mobile 
Cnty., 58 So. 3d 733, 739 (Ala. 2010)). 
SC-2023-0122 
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that contrasts starkly with first-impression certiorari, in which we are 
often confronted with novel questions of legal importance that lack an 
opinion from this Court. The question presented often warrants our 
public analysis and answer to it, even if it may not affect the result of the 
individual case (or the petitioner has not shown that it will). For the 
reasons I have explained, when reviewing a first-impression certiorari 
petition, our primary concern should be the correctness of the law, not 
the correctness of the judgment. 
 
The present case is a good example. The Court of Criminal Appeals' 
interpretation of the misdemeanor catchall provision, § 13A-5-4(b), will 
be binding on all trial courts regarding all misdemeanor offenses outside 
Title 13A, not just regarding the dead-animal statute. That is true 
regardless of whether the Court of Criminal Appeals' alternative, in pari 
materia rationale will also apply to those other offenses. As binding 
precedent, that court's holding regarding the catchall provision stands 
alone; its correctness does not depend on the in pari materia rationale, 
and its correctness should be reviewed on its own merit.2 
 
2It may also be proper for this Court to address the in pari materia 
rationale as part of that review, because addressing it would be an 
integral part of answering the broader question whether the dead-animal 
SC-2023-0122 
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Accordingly, when a petitioner seeks certiorari as to an opinion of a 
court of appeals on the ground that a question of first impression is 
presented, I do not believe that the petitioner needs to challenge every 
alternative rationale of the appeals court to show that the question 
"requir[es] decision," that the petitioner's argument has a "probability of 
merit," and that "there are special and important reasons for the issuance 
of the writ," Rule 39(a)(1)(C), (f), (a). To import such a requirement from 
our direct-appeal review would be to hinder this Court from fulfilling its 
constitutional role as "the highest court of the state," Art. VI, § 140(a), 
Ala. Const. 2022. 
 
Cook, J., concurs. 
 
 
 
 
 
statute permits imprisonment. Cf. Ex parte George, [Ms. 1190490, Jan. 
8, 2021] ___ So. 3d ___, ___ n.12 (Ala. 2021) (Parker, C.J., dissenting) 
(recognizing that grant of certiorari may apply to "question[s] that [are] 
... inextricably intertwined with[] the question on which we granted 
certiorari review").