IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE

AT NASHVILLE

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. EARL JUNIOR PIKE

Appeal from the Criminal Court for Davidson County

No. 97-A-369 Cheryl A. Blackburn, Judge

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No. M2015-01573-CCA-R3-CD – Filed July 11, 2016

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The Appellant, Earl Junior Pike, is appealing the trial court’s order denying his motion to 

correct an illegal sentence filed pursuant to Rule of Criminal Procedure Rule 36.1 The 

State has filed a motion asking this Court to affirm pursuant to Court of Criminal Appeals 

Rule 20. Said motion is hereby granted.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Order of the Trial Court Affirmed Pursuant 

to Court of Criminal Appeals Rule 20

ROBERT W. WEDEMEYER, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which ROBERT L.

HOLLOWAY,JR., and TIMOTHY L. EASTER, JJ., joined.

Earl Junior Pike, pro se.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Clark B. Thornton, Senior 

Counsel, for the Appellee, State of Tennessee.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

The Appellant was convicted of aggravated sexual battery and rape of a child in 

1998. State v. Earl Junior Pike, No. 01C01-9804-CR-00168, 1999 WL 737876 (Tenn. 

Crim. App., Sep. 22, 1999), perm. to app. denied, (Tenn., Mar. 6, 2000). He was 

sentenced to twelve years for the aggravated sexual battery conviction and twenty-five 

years for the rape of a child conviction, to be served consecutively. Id. This Court 

affirmed those convictions and sentences on appeal. The Appellant subsequently sought 

post-conviction relief, but was unsuccessful in his pursuit. Earl Junior Pike v. State, No. 

M2002-01363-CCA-R3-PC, 2003 WL 21486896 (Tenn. Crim. App., June 27, 2003).

On May 8, 2015, the Appellant filed a motion to correct an illegal sentence. See

Tenn. R. Crim. P. 36.1. The Appellant argued that, pursuant to the “24 hour merger 

rule,” the twelve year sentence should be merged into the twenty-five year sentence
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because he committed the offenses against one victim on a single day. The trial court 

disagreed. Concluding that the Appellant’s sentence was legal, the court held:

In this case, Petitioner is mixing up legal concepts; specifically, the 

definition of “prior convictions” for purposes of determining range under 

the Sentencing Act in attempt[] to apply it to consecutive sentencing. The 

“24-hour rule” Petitioner references is [] contained in subsections under 

T.C.A. §§ 40-35-106, 107, and 108 to assist in defining what constitutes a 

prior conviction when calculating convictions for Multiple, Persistent, and 

Career Offender ranges, respectively.

Petitioner’s consecutive sentences for his aggravated sexual battery 

and rape of a child convictions comport with Tennessee sentencing statutes. 

Petitioner has failed to state a colorable claim pursuant to Rule 36.1 of the 

Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure.

This Court hereby affirms that ruling. Rule 36.1 permits a defendant to seek 

correction of an unexpired illegal sentence at any time. See State v. Brown, 479 S.W.3d 

200, 211 (Tenn. 2015). “[A]n illegal sentence is one that is not authorized by the 

applicable statutes or that directly contravenes an applicable statute.” Tenn. R. Crim. P. 

36.1(a). Our supreme court recently interpreted the meaning of “illegal sentence” as 

defined in Rule 36.1 and concluded that the definition “is coextensive, and not broader 

than, the definition of the term in the habeas corpus context.” State v. Wooden, 478 

S.W.3d 585, 594-95 (Tenn. 2015). The court then reviewed the three categories of 

sentencing errors: clerical errors (those arising from a clerical mistake in the judgment 

sheet), appealable errors (those for which the Sentencing Act specifically provides a right 

of direct appeal) and fatal errors (those so profound as to render a sentence illegal and 

void). Id. Commenting on appealable errors, the court stated that those “generally 

involve attacks on the correctness of the methodology by which a trial court imposed 

sentence.” Id. In contrast, fatal errors include “sentences imposed pursuant to an 

inapplicable statutory scheme, sentences designating release eligibility dates where early 

release is statutorily prohibited, sentences that are ordered to be served concurrently 

where statutorily required to be served consecutively, and sentences not authorized by 

any statute for the offenses.” Id. The court held that only fatal errors render sentences 

illegal. Id. 

The Appellant challenged the length and manner of his sentences on direct appeal. 

This Court concluded that his consecutive sentences were authorized by statute. Pike, 

1999 WL 737876 at *6-8. Accordingly, the trial court correctly held that the Appellant 

did not state a colorable claim for relief pursuant to Rule 36.1. The Appellant raises for 

the first time in his brief on appeal an issue relating to a double jeopardy violation. That 
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issue was not presented to the trial court and thus it is waived on appeal. See, e.g., Butler 

v. State, 789 S.W.2d 898, 902 (Tenn. 1990). Regardless of waiver, this Court has 

emphasized that Rule 36.1 “provide[s] an avenue for correcting allegedly illegal 

sentences. The Rules does not provide an avenue for seeking the reversal of 

convictions.” State v. Jimmy Wayne Wilson, No. E2013-02354-CCA-R3-CD, 2014 WL 

1285622 (Tenn. Crim. App., Mar. 31, 2014), perm. to app. denied, (Tenn., Nov. 19, 

2014) (emphases in original).

Accordingly, the ruling of the trial court is hereby affirmed pursuant to Court of 

Criminal Appeals Rule 20.

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ROBERT W. WEDEMEYER, JUDGE