Court Opinion

ID: 9682929
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:19:50.088421+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:43.264207
License: Public Domain

BROCK, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
I cannot stretch the language of T.C.A., § 40-3802, viz., “a prisoner in custody . ” and “ . . . before the sentence has expired or has been fully satisfied,” far enough to reach the appellant, whose sentence expired and was fully satisfied and who was released from custody of the prison years before he filed this claim for relief under the Post-Conviction Procedure Act, T.C.A., § 40-3801, et seq.
The Legislature, in my opinion, has not extended the benefits of this Act to every person who has ever been convicted in the criminal courts of this State and who continues to suffer some detrimental effect from such conviction, apart from the sentence imposed, even effects imposed by the laws of another state, such as respondent’s loss of the right to vote in Georgia. Instead, the Act is limited to “prisoner(s) in custody.” The American Heritage Diction*695ary of the English Language defines “custody” as:
“ . . .2. The state of being kept or guarded. 3. The state of being detained or held under guard, especially by the police.”
The same authority defines “prisoner” as:
“1. A person held in custody, captivity, or a condition of forcible restraint, especially while on trial or serving a prison sentence. 2. One deprived of freedom of action or expression.”
Not only is the Act out of reach of the respondent because he is not a prisoner and is not in custody, the detriment which he suffers and upon the basis of which the majority finds a remnant of “custody,” i. e., his ineligibility to vote in Georgia, is not imposed by his Tennessee sentence or otherwise by Tennessee law, but by the laws of Georgia.
Admittedly, the majority cites respectable authority from other jurisdictions, but, in my view, the question is purely one of legislative intent as expressed by the language of the statute, as to which court decisions of other jurisdictions involving different statutes are not persuasive.
Accordingly, I would reverse and dismiss the petition.