Opinion ID: 1057949
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Jury Instruction Regarding Release Eligibility Date

Text: The trial court in both cases instructed the jury that a person convicted of first degree murder would be eligible for release after serving twenty-five years. However, the actual earliest release eligibility date for a person convicted of first degree murder was fifty-one years. See Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-35-501(i) (2003). Both Vaughns allege that their lawyers were ineffective for failing to object to the trial court's erroneous instruction to the jury regarding the release eligibility date. The State responds that, while the instruction was erroneous, counsel were not ineffective for failing to object because, at the time of trial, there were conflicting provisions in Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-501 as to the actual release eligibility date for a person convicted of first degree murder. We have previously held that an attorney's failure to object to erroneous jury instructions regarding the applicable range of punishment constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel requiring reversal of the conviction and remand for a new trial. Dean, 59 S.W.3d at 668-69. In Dean , the trial judge instructed the jury that the range of punishment for second degree murder was three to ten years, when in fact it was eight to thirty years. Moreover, the range applicable to the defendant as a Range II multiple offender was twelve to twenty years. We held: In our view, effective counsel must be aware of the possible punishments applicable to his or her client and must be informed and attentive when the trial court's instructions to the jury embrace such an obviously critical matter. Moreover, our decision in State v. Cook , which emphasized that an erroneous range of punishment instruction similar to that given in this case constitutes reversible error, was decided four years prior to the trial in this case and an effective counsel should have been aware of it. See 816 S.W.2d 322 (Tenn.1991). Dean's trial counsel nevertheless failed to notice the incorrect jury instruction, failed to be aware of the appropriate ranges of punishment, failed to object to the erroneous instruction during trial, and failed to preserve the erroneous instruction for appeal by listing it in the motion for a new trial. Dean's appellate counsel likewise failed to raise the issue on direct appeal. All of these functions are basic, yet essential, for preserving and raising errors under our rules of appellate procedure. See Tenn. R.App. P. 3(e). In our view, therefore, the performance of counsel was deficient under the prevailing standards in Baxter and Strickland . Id. at 668. While Dean dealt with an erroneous instruction regarding the range of punishment, we have also held that erroneous instructions regarding release eligibility constitute reversible error. See State v. Meyer, 994 S.W.2d 129 (Tenn.1999). When a trial court instructs the jury as to the range of sentence for a particular offense, [s]uch instruction shall include an approximate calculation of the minimum number of years a person sentenced to imprisonment for the offense charged and lesser included offenses must serve before reaching such person's earliest release eligibility date. Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-35-201(b)(2)(A)(i). [4] There is no dispute over the fact that counsel in both cases were unaware of the trial court's erroneous instruction regarding release eligibility and remained unaware of the error throughout the appellate process. However, the Court of Criminal Appeals held that counsel should not be faulted for failing to object to the erroneous instruction because conflicting statutory provisions created uncertainty in the law at the time the case was tried. Prior to July 1, 1995, the release eligibility of a defendant sentenced to life in prison was governed by Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-501(h)(1). This section provided: Release eligibility for each defendant receiving a sentence of imprisonment for life for first degree murder shall occur after service of sixty percent (60%) of sixty (60) years less sentence credits earned and retained by the defendant, but in no event shall a defendant sentenced to imprisonment for life be eligible for parole until the defendant has served a minimum of twenty-five (25) full calendar years of such sentence . . . . Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-35-501(h)(1). On June 12, 1995, the Legislature passed Public Act Chapter 492 which amended Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-501 by adding subsection (i), which states in pertinent part: There shall be no release eligibility for a person committing an offense, on or after July 1, 1995, that is enumerated in subdivision (i)(2). Such person shall serve one hundred percent (100%) of the sentence imposed by the court less sentence credits earned and retained. However, no sentence reduction credits authorized by § 41-21-236, or any other provision of law, shall operate to reduce the sentence imposed by the court by more than fifteen percent (15%). Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-35-501(i). The passage of section 40-35-501(i) did not repeal section (h), as section (h) still applies to a person committing an offense before July 1, 1995. However, it was not expressly stated that section (h) would no longer apply to a person committing an offense on or after July 1, 1995. Accordingly, at the time of both trials, both section (h), providing for release eligibility after twenty-five years, and section (i), providing for release eligibility only after fifty-one years, were in effect. Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-501(i), which went into effect on July 1, 1995, was in effect at the time that the offenses were committed, and a full eleven months before the cases went to trial. While the amendment raised the question as to which section of the statute applied to these cases at the time of trial, that does not excuse counsel in these cases. As we stated in Dean , effective counsel must be aware of the possible punishments applicable to his or her client and must be informed and attentive when the trial court's instructions to the jury embrace such an obviously critical matter. 59 S.W.3d at 668. That there was a conflict in the provisions, far from excusing counsel from raising the issue, should have brought to their attention the very need to raise the issue. Counsel's failure to raise the issue is a direct result of their failure to apprise themselves of the current sentencing provisions when the case went to trial. As for the conflict in the statutes, well-settled principles of statutory construction make it clear that the most recently enacted statute repeals by implication any irreconcilable provisions of the former act. See, e.g., Tennessee-Carolina Transp., Inc. v. Pentecost, 211 Tenn. 72, 362 S.W.2d 461, 463 (1962). The Attorney General issued an opinion on July 1, 1997, in an attempt to clarify the effect of the amendment on the prior statutory language. The Attorney General based his opinion on long established rules of statutory construction and concluded: The only reasonable resulting interpretation would be that subsection (i) operates, in so far as it conflicts with the provisions of the existing statute governing release eligibility, to raise the floor from 60% of sixty years . . . to 100% of sixty years, reduced by not more than 15% of eligible credits. Tenn. Op. Att'y Gen., No. 97-098 (1997) (emphasis added.) Even if counsel in these cases had not become aware of the conflict, or aware of the conflict's impact on the sentencing in these cases, until the Attorney General's July 1997 opinion, they still had sufficient opportunity to bring the issue to the attention of the Court of Criminal Appeals as plain error, as that court's opinions were not entered until April and May of 1998. Both J. Vaughn's and R. Vaughn's trial counsel failed to apprise themselves of the correct release eligibility dates for the possible convictions and therefore failed to notice and object to the incorrect jury instruction; both likewise failed to raise the issue on direct appeal even after the conflict in language was clarified by the Attorney General. Therefore, we hold that the performance of counsel in both cases was deficient under the prevailing standards in Baxter and Strickland . Having determined that counsel's representation was deficient we must next determine whether that deficiency prejudiced the defense. See Baxter, 523 S.W.2d at 936; Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052. To prove prejudice, a petitioner must establish a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different, with a reasonable probability being defined as a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. In Dean , after holding counsel deficient for failing to object to erroneous jury instructions regarding the range of the sentence, we held that the deficiency prejudiced the defense. [W]e believe that the deficiency in performance was prejudicial given the critical nature of the error that was permitted to occur without objection or appeal. . . . In our view, it is reasonably probable that had counsel objected to and appealed the erroneous jury instruction, the result would have been different and the petitioner would have received a new trial on the offense of attempted second degree murder under our decision in Cook . Accordingly, we hold that the petitioner was prejudiced by the deficient performance of counsel. Dean, 59 S.W.3d at 668-69. Previously, in State v. Cook, 816 S.W.2d 322, 326-27 (Tenn.1991), this Court held that Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-201(b) gives a defendant a claimable statutory right to have the jury know the range of punishment applicable to the charges before deciding guilt or innocence and to deny this statutory right constitutes prejudice to the judicial process, rendering the error reversible under Rule 36(b) T.R.A.P. The trial court in Cook had charged the jury with Range I sentence ranges although, in reality, the defendant was an aggravated Range II offender. He was sentenced to Range II sentences of twenty-five years on each of his three aggravated rape convictions and seven years on each of his two aggravated sexual battery convictions. We reversed the convictions and remanded the charges to the trial court for a new trial, finding the error in the jury instructions to be prejudicial. Id. We observed in Cook : It is widely perceived by those who observed the operations of our trial courts in previous times, when juries had the additional responsibility of setting punishment, that often they seemed to find guilt of a crime not necessarily most strongly suggested by the evidence, but one the punishment for which suited their sense of justice for the case. Apparently the Legislature desired to give those charged with crimes the option of making certain that the jury knew the punitive consequences of guilty verdicts in the cases under consideration. . . . Id. at 326-27. Furthermore, we specified in Cook that prejudice occurs when a defendant receives a sentence greater than the range of punishment contemplated by the jury. Cook, 816 S.W.2d at 327; see also Dean, 59 S.W.3d at 669. This rationale from Cook was reaffirmed in State v. Meyer, 994 S.W.2d 129 (Tenn. 1999). In Meyer , we held that a trial court's instruction to the jury, which contained an inaccurate release eligibility date for the charged offense, was reversible error. Id. at 132. Meyer was convicted of two counts of rape of a child. Id. at 131. The trial court instructed the jury that he would be eligible for release following a conviction of child rape after serving 5.73 years of his sentence, when in reality, a defendant convicted of child rape is not eligible for early release and must serve the entire sentence imposed. Id. The Court of Criminal Appeals acknowledged the error but found it to be harmless due to substantial evidence in support of a conviction. Id. This Court found that, despite the strength of the evidence, it was reasonably probable that the defendant would have been convicted of a lesser offense had the jury known that he would not be eligible for early release. Id. at 132 We reversed the conviction and remanded for a new trial. Id. As in Cook and Meyer , the jury in each case was given an erroneous instruction regarding the length of sentence to be served. The juries were instructed that, if convicted of first degree murder, the defendant would be eligible for release after twenty-five years, when in fact, he would not be eligible for release until the completion of fifty-one years. Thus, J. Vaughn and R. Vaughn received greater sentences than contemplated by the juries. It is reasonably probable that the juries would have convicted J. Vaughn and R. Vaughn of a lesser offense had they been read a correct instruction on release eligibility. Accordingly, we conclude that the deficiency in both counsel's representation prejudiced the defense. We must, therefore, reverse the convictions for first degree murder of both J. Vaughn and R. Vaughn, and remand for new trials.