Court Opinion

ID: 9648441
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:20:44.511605+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:00.750312
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON PETITION TO REHEAR
A petition to rehear has been filed by the state in this cause.
We are urged in the petition to reconsider the remand for trial as to the punishment aspect of our opinion.
We had affirmed the judgment of conviction when the assignments of error were treated and found without merit. However, as stated in our opinion, we had no alternative but to remand the record for a determination of punishment in view of the holdings in Furman v. Georgia, Jackson v. Georgia and Branch v. Texas, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346.
We are notified by the petition to rehear that by Executive Order of Commutation No. 70030 executed by the Honorable Winfield Dunn, Governor of the State of Tennessee, that the sentence of *629death imposed by the jury in this record is commuted to ninety-nine years imprisonment. Such order of commutation as entered has been affixed and attached to the petition reflecting execution by signature of the Governor with affixation of the Great Seal of the State on August 7, 1972.
On December 18, 1972, our Supreme Court, in deciding the validity of a similar commutation by the Governor, see Bowen v. State, Tenn., 488 S.W.2d 373, released at Knoxville on December 18, 1972, decreed the exercise of the power of commutation by the Governor to be valid and a proper exercise of executive authority.
It is therefore ordered, adjudged and decreed that the request by the state in this petition is with merit. See Bowen v. State, supra. We therefore, in obedience to the mandate of our Supreme Court under the authority delineated, reconsider the remand for punishment aspect of our opinion and for naught it is held. The judgment is accordingly modified and affirmed in compliance with the executive order of commutation as entered.
RUSSELL, and O’BRIEN, JJ., concur.