Court Opinion

ID: 9769202
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 14:38:45.512153+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:57.761179
License: Public Domain

ORDER ON PETITION TO REHEAR
A scholarly petition to rehear has been filed on behalf of defendant invoking various provisions of the Constitution of Tennessee and citing numerous court decisions in support of its solicitation to have the case resubmitted and reargued before the newly-elected and presently sitting Court.
The petition to rehear does not meet the requirements of T.R.A.P. 39.
The unanimous opinion of this Court in the case was filed on 4 September 1990. It is contended that the term of office of three of the Justices before whom the case was submitted and argued had expired pri- or to the date the opinion of the Court was filed and judgment entered, therefore these Justices were functus officio and without power to act.
On 27 August, 1990 the Chief Justice of this Court, under the auspices of Art. VI, Secs. 2, 3 and 11 of the State Constitution and T.C.A. § 16-3-502, designated each of the three Justices whose qualifications are questioned, to sit and act after August 31, 1990, as a Special Justice of the Supreme Court for the purpose of completing the work on all pending cases in which they had been a participant.
Defendant has been accorded every trial right guaranteed to him under either the State or Federal Constitution. These guarantees do not include a right to appellate review beyond the extent that the State may not discriminate against him individually in the appellate process. This has not occurred.
The request that this petition to rehear be submitted to and considered by the newly-elected Court taking office on 4 September 1990 is also without merit.
Three of the members of the presently sitting Court have not previously participated in consideration of the case and are therefore not lawfully competent to act in any capacity in its review.
The petition to rehear is denied.
DROWOTA, C.J., and COOPER and HARBISON, JJ., concur.
FONES, J., not participating.