Court Opinion

ID: 9667136
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:36:32.019382+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:35.337159
License: Public Domain

ORDER ON MOTION BY APPELLANT TO VACATE ORDER AND MANDATE OF SEPTEMBER 30, 1991, AND FOR LEAVE TO FILE A PETITION FOR A REHEARING
November 12, 1991.
PER CURIAM.
The State filed a petition for a rehearing which, in effect, abandoned the predicate for the State’s original appeal. The State had in its appeal complained that the trial judge had sentenced Benedict Joseph Cook, III, as a Range I offender when, in fact and law, he should have been sentenced as a Range II offender. We agreed with the State, but held that under the circumstances the case would have to be tried anew and the jury advised of the correct relevant punishment. The State, in its filing called a petition to rehear, abandoned its goal of seeking Range II punishment, because under current law punishment in the event of conviction would be Range I. Inasmuch as the State was no longer seeking the relief that it sought upon its appeal, we considered that appeal to be withdrawn. We therefore reinstated the original judgment of the trial court.
Counsel for Mr. Cook has now moved us to vacate our order whereby we reinstated the judgment of the trial court, on the ground that we failed to follow the procedures set forth in Rule 39, Tennessee Rules of Appellate Procedure, regarding allowing a response to a petition for rehearing where a rehearing is granted.
The motion to vacate our order is respectfully overruled. We did not grant a rehearing under Rule 39. Instead, we treated the filing of the State as constituting a motion to voluntarily dismiss its appeal under Rule 15(b), Tennessee Rules of Appellate Procedure, and we granted that motion.
The motion of Appellant Cook to be allowed to file a petition for a rehearing under Rule 39(f), on the ground that he was not allowed to respond to the State’s petition for a rehearing, is likewise denied, for the same reasons.