Court Opinion

ID: 9681351
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:48:42.365706+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:33.527598
License: Public Domain

On Petition to Behear
Mr. Justice White.
A petition has been filed in this case in which it is prayed that “an order be made and entered permitting him to serve his sentence in the Carter County Jail rather than the State Penitentiary”, and for general relief.
T.C.A. sec. 40-3105 provides that where a person has been convicted of a felony and the jury shall fix his punishment at five years or less, the court, in its discretion, may order such convicted person confined in the county workhouse for the term of such sentence, provided that the trial judge shall have the power to order the removal of the prisoner from the county workhouse to the penitentiary whenever, in his opinion, such prisoner is being treated in a brutal or inhuman manner, or when it shall appear to him, the trial judge, that the physical condition of the prisoner is such that work on the road is deleterious to his health.
This is, therefore, a matter vested within the discretion of the trial judge by an Act of the Legislature and he may consider a petition asking for such relief when the case of a convicted person is still within the jurisdiction of the court. However, in this case the jurisdiction of the trial judge over this defendant has been removed by the appeal prayed for and perfected herein.
In Thomas v. State, 201 Tenn. 645, 301 S.W.2d 358 (1957), this Court did remand with direction that the sentence be served in the Davidson County Workhouse. *73However, the Court stated that the specific purpose to he served by the remand was to enable a mental examination of the defendant to determine the effect of amnesia upon his mind, an issue which had been raised but not developed upon the trial.
A like or similar situation is not present in this case. If the defendant has been desirous of serving his sentence in the local jail, application should have been made in the first instance to the trial judge who would have responded, as the petitioner now ask that we do, if the judge had thought it proper to do so in the circumstances. By virtue of his knowledge of local conditions, the trial judge is in a far better position to exercise the discretion vested in him by said section than we are when we are guided only by the record appearing before us.
In view of the foregoing, the petition is denied.