Opinion ID: 3159549
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Failure to Award Pretrial Jail Credit

Text: The State has conceded in this Court, as it did in the Court of Criminal Appeals, that Mr. Brown‘s assertion that the trial court failed to award him pretrial jail credits is sufficient to state a colorable claim for relief under Rule 36.1 because a statute requires trial courts to award such credits13 and because the Court of Criminal Appeals has held 12 Our interpretation of the scope of relief available under Rule 36.1 obviates the need to address the Court of Criminal Appeals‘ holding that Mr. Brown‘s motion is moot. However, we note that, ―[a]lthough the issues are often mistakenly blurred, the scope of habeas corpus jurisdiction and the mootness of a particular writ are separate and distinct questions.‖ May, 245 S.W.3d at 356 (Koch, J., dissenting) (citing Malloy v. Purvis, 681 F.2d 736, 738 n.1 (11th Cir. 1982); Harrison v. State, 597 F.2d 115, 117-18 (7th Cir. 1979)). ―[A] challenged conviction‘s collateral consequences may prevent a habeas corpus petition from becoming moot.‖ Id. (citing Carafas v. LaVallee, 391 U.S. 234 (1968); Jones v. Cunningham, 371 U.S. 236 (1963)). However, the existence of a collateral consequence that prevents ―a case from becoming moot does not answer the question of whether a petition falls within the scope of habeas corpus jurisdiction.‖ Id. When a sentence has expired and the ―restraint on a petitioner‘s liberty is merely a collateral consequence of the challenged judgment, habeas corpus is not an appropriate avenue for seeking relief.‖ Hickman, 153 S.W.3d at 23. This same limitation applies to the scope of relief available under Rule 36.1. Collateral consequences may prevent a case from becoming moot in the traditional sense of the mootness doctrine, but Rule 36.1 is not an appropriate avenue for seeking relief from collateral consequences. 13 Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-23-101(c) provides: The trial court shall, at the time the sentence is imposed and the defendant is committed to jail, the workhouse or the state penitentiary for imprisonment, render the judgment of the court so as to allow the defendant credit on the sentence for any period of time for which the defendant was committed and held in the city jail or juvenile court detention prior to waiver of juvenile court jurisdiction, or county jail or workhouse, pending arraignment and trial. The defendant shall also receive credit on the sentence for the time served in the jail, workhouse or penitentiary subsequent to any conviction arising out of the original offense for which the defendant was tried. - 13 - that a trial court‘s failure to award pretrial jail credit renders a defendant‘s sentence illegal. See Tucker v. Morrow, 335 S.W.3d 116, 123 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2009) (citing May, 245 S.W.3d at 344). This Court has not previously held that the trial court‘s failure to award pretrial jail credits renders the sentence illegal. Moreover, in so holding, the Court of Criminal Appeals relied upon a decision this Court rendered in an appeal as of right, in which the trial court‘s failure to award pretrial jail credits was raised as an appealable error. See Stubbs v. State, 393 S.W.2d 150, 154 (Tenn. 1965). Additionally, the Court of Criminal Appeals‘ holding in Tucker that a trial court‘s failure to award pretrial jail credits renders a defendant‘s sentence illegal predated Davis and Cantrell, which comprehensively defined ―illegal sentence,‖ for purposes of both habeas corpus and Rule 36.1. See Wooden, __ S.W.3d at __. While we certainly agree with the Court of Criminal Appeals that a statute requires trial courts to award pretrial jail credits, we conclude that the intermediate appellate court erred by holding that a trial court‘s erroneous failure to comply with this statute renders the sentence illegal. Although pretrial jail credits allow a defendant to receive credit against his sentence for time already served, awarding or not awarding pretrial jail credits does not alter the sentence in any way, although it may affect the length of time a defendant is incarcerated. A trial court‘s failure to award pretrial jail credits may certainly be raised as error on appeal, as the defendant in Stubbs chose to do. But a trial court‘s failure to award pretrial jail credits does not render the sentence illegal and is insufficient, therefore, to establish a colorable claim for relief under Rule 36.1. See Wooden, ___ S.W.3d at ___ (defining colorable claim as ―a claim that, if taken as true and viewed in a light most favorable to the moving party, would entitle the moving party to relief under Rule 36.1‖).