Opinion ID: 2395215
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: robert lee prince

Text: Robert Lee Prince was convicted in the Shelby County Criminal Court under three (3) indictments in 1980. He was put to trial for armed robbery and two (2) offenses of petit larceny, all triggering offenses under T.C.A. § 39-1-801, the Habitual Criminal Statute. He was sentenced to eleven (11) months and twenty-nine (29) days in each of the petit larceny cases and to ten (10) years for armed robbery. In a bifurcated proceeding he received three (3) life sentences as an habitual criminal. The sentences on the petit larceny offenses were set to run concurrently with the enhanced sentence for armed robbery to be served consecutively to the concurrent sentences. This judgment was affirmed by the Court of Criminal Appeals on 20 November 1980. In 1982, defendant, through counsel, filed a post-conviction petition alleging that the habitual criminal sentences were unconstitutional on several grounds. He also charged his trial counsel with ineffective representation for failure to raise these issues on direct appeal. The trial court found the petition to be without merit. It was dismissed without an evidentiary hearing. The judgment was affirmed by the Court of Criminal Appeals in January 1984. This Court denied an application for appeal, concurring in results only. On 10 October 1987 defendant filed a pro se Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus in the Criminal Court of Shelby County. The primary intent of this petition was to vacate the life sentences imposed in his 1980 habitual criminal trial. One of the grounds alleged in the petition was that prior guilty pleas entered on 14 September 1976 in five (5) robbery cases were involuntary and not knowledgeable because neither the trial judge nor his counsel advised him of his right against self-incrimination. He further alleged that the failure to warn him that the prior convictions might be used in the future to enhance punishment in further prosecutions rendered his pleas involuntary and not intelligently submitted. The trial court found that the petition should be treated as an application for post-conviction relief. He further found that the matters complained of had been previously determined and/or waived, having not been raised in his prior post-conviction relief petition filed on 9 September 1982. He also held that the petition was barred by the statute of limitations pursuant to T.C.A. § 40-30-102. [1] The petition was dismissed. The Court of Criminal Appeals, in a split decision, reversed the trial court and remanded with instructions. They concurred in the finding that the petition did not allege any grounds for habeas corpus relief under Tennessee law and was properly viewed as a petition for post-conviction relief. They held that under prior case law the petition was not barred by the three (3) year statute of limitations. [2] Citing State v. Swanson, 749 S.W.2d 731 (Tenn. 1988) and State v. McClintock, 732 S.W.2d 268 (Tenn. 1987), as authority, the majority found that Prince had presented a colorable claim for relief which required the appointment of counsel to draft a competent petition to be addressed under the post-conviction procedure laws. In light of their analysis of Swanson and McClintock they found that the failure to challenge the underlying guilty pleas in the earlier petition did not waive the issue, or preclude a later attack on the life sentences if the guilty pleas were found to be invalid. They found that the record submitted to them did not indicate any defect in the guilty pleas had been established at the time of the first petition and therefore was not then an available ground for relief. In their view, the McClintock opinion in 1987 was the first suggestion that the multiple petitions might be consolidated in one proceeding. They remanded for further proceedings including appointment of counsel to establish the identity of the underlying convictions and to determine whether separate petitions to attack the habitual criminal conviction could be consolidated in the cause. Judge Daughtrey in dissent disputed the majority's holding that Prince's claim had not been waived under T.C.A. § 40-30-112 and concluded the Swanson rule did not apply. She further expressed the view that McClintock did not create a new rule, or recognize a claim that had not been recognized in the past, but merely established the proper procedure for raising Boykin - Mackey [3] claims.