Opinion ID: 1438781
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Plaintiff's Status as a Prisoner of the TDOC or the County Jail

Text: Initially, we must note that the District Court's certified question incorrectly presumes Plaintiff's status as a TDOC prisoner. Plaintiff's counsel conceded this drafting error during oral argument. The District Court's erroneous presumption is based upon Plaintiff's erroneous judgment orders. Those orders for Plaintiff's felony convictions indicate on their face that Plaintiff was sentenced to TDOC. The problem is that the Tennessee Criminal Sentencing Reform Act of 1989, Tenn.Code Ann. §§ 40-35-101 through505 (2006) (the Sentencing Act), under which Plaintiff was sentenced, does not provide for Plaintiff's felony sentences to be served in the TDOC. The Sentencing Act provides for the following sentencing alternatives for felony sentences: continuous confinement (in either the TDOC or a local jail or workhouse), periodic confinement (in a local jail or workhouse), fines, probation, work release, community-based corrections, or a combination of these options. Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-35-104(c). Relevant to this case, section 40-35-306(a) of the Sentencing Act provides for the option of split confinement, or so-called shock probation, wherein an offender is required to serve a period of continuous confinement of up to one year in a local jail or workhouse before being placed on probation. The Sentencing Act expressly states that for a sentence of eight years or less that is combined with split confinement not exceeding one yearthe sentence imposed on Plaintiffthe court shall designate the place of confinement as a local jail or workhouse. Id. § 40-35-314(a) (emphasis added). Thus, the trial court erred when it designated on Plaintiff's judgment orders that he was sentenced to the TDOC. This erroneous designation is a significant cause of the confusion in this case. Although the standard judgment form in use at the time provided an option for sentencing an offender to the county jail or workhouse, with a corresponding option of designating a period of incarceration to be served prior to release on probation, the trial court erroneously checked the box next to TDOC in spite of also checking the box next to Probation with a notation supervised after serv[ice of] 1 year. The erroneously marked TDOC box notwithstanding, it is clear that Plaintiff received a split confinement sentence as provided for in Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-306(a). Therefore, as provided by section 40-35-314(a), his designated place of confinement was the county jail or workhouse. Accordingly, we conclude that Plaintiff was not a TDOC prisoner. See State v. Sutton, 166 S.W.3d 686, 690 (Tenn.2005) (disregarding trial court's erroneous designation on judgment order that defendant was sentenced to the TDOC when actual sentence imposed was to community corrections).