Court Opinion

ID: 9759301
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:11:42.367014+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:00.973889
License: Public Domain

O’BRIEN, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent.
The majority have chosen to abrogate a provision of the Constitution of this State, which has existed for nearly two hundred years, by their finding that the Legislature intended, in enacting the Criminal Sentencing Reform Act of 1982, to authorize appellate review of fines imposed by a jury at trial. To accomplish this, they depend entirely upon their analysis of the legislative intent in passing the reform act, acting in direct contravention of the constitutional provision, totally antithetical to their conclusion, which prevents the General Assembly from authorizing or the appellate courts from utilizing, such a procedure.
Article 6, § 14 of the Constitution of Tennessee says in very simple and expressive language:
Sec. 14 — Fines exceeding fifty dollars to be assessed by jury. — No fines shall be laid on any citizen of this State that shall exceed fifty dollars, unless it shall be assessed by a jury of his peers, who shall assess the fine at the time they find the fact, if they think the fine should be more than fifty dollars.
That same mandate has been one of the touchstones of our constitutional law since the adoption of our original Constitution in the year 1796. The majority now pretend to alter that law by judicial fiat, based on their own analysis, without so much as *768giving lip service to constitutional precedent.
Utilizing a dictionary definition of “sentence” which defines the word, as it applies in criminal matters, as “the order by which a court or judge imposes punishment or penalty upon a person found guilty,” they extrapolate that definition to mean the Legislature intended the Criminal Sentencing Reform Act of 1982 to include appellate review of fines fixed by a jury.
In conducting their analysis the majority have directed our attention to various statutory provisions of the Act which, they earnestly argue, authorize the procedure they now approve. They concede that the Reform Act does contain a different procedure for the fixing of fines, because of the Tennessee Constitutional provision which limits the trial court's setting of a fine to the sum of $50, unless a greater amount is assessed by the jury. They then refer to T.C.A. § 40-35-301(b) for the statement that the statute directs that the judge may impose any fine “not to exceed the fine fixed by the jury.”
Taken in context, § 40-35-301 directs no such thing. Subparagraph (a) of the statute spells out specifically that the trial judge shall fix the fine for offenses punishable by a fine of $50 or less.1 Subsection (b) says in clear, unconfusing language, “in a case where the range of punishment includes a fine in excess of fifty dollars ($50), the jury finding the defendant guilty shall also fix the fine, if any, in excess of fifty dollars ($50) ... When imposing sentence, after the sentencing hearing, the court shall impose a fine, if any, not to exceed the fine fixed by the jury.” Obviously, the second sentence must take its meaning in relation to the first quoted, and means without equivocation, the trial judge shall impose the fine fixed by the jury. Several parts from Title 40, Chapter 24, are also cited in the lead opinion to the effect that the trial court may reduce, suspend or release fines which have been imposed.2
Having completed their construction of the various statutes involved, the majority then reach the conclusion that, “Nowhere in the Reform Act, or in the statutes dealing with appellate court jurisdiction, or in the statutes dealing specifically with fines, do we find any explicit prohibition against appellate review of fines. Where the legislative drafters intended to limit or prohibit appellate review, they had no difficulty using specific language_”. No reference is made to their previous statement that “The Reform Act does contain a different procedure for the fixing of fines, because of the Tennessee Constitutional provision which limits the trial court’s fixing of fines to the greater of $50 or the amount assessed by the jury.”
Certainly it is no quantum leap to recognize that it is not the Legislature which prohibits any court, at any level, to set a fine, if it shall exceed the sum of $50. Not any court, including this one, has any jurisdiction to expand its own authority beyond constitutional limits. It is equally plain that the Legislature cannot confer such authority. One has only to ask, if the appellate court in this case can reduce the amount of the fine fixed by the jury, at what level will they set it? If they fix any amount greater than $50 they have violated the provisions of Article 6, § 14 of the Constitution.
The Legislature recently had an opportunity, in its passage of the 1989 Criminal Reform Act, to include the review of fines in addressing those sentences subject to de novo review. It chose not to make that change in the statutory scheme in light of the jury’s constitutional dominion over this aspect of sentencing. What the Court now seeks to do is a positive violation of the plain mandate of the constitutional provision which limits the authority of all but the jury to fix a fine in any manner in excess of $50. Where jurisdiction is affirmatively withheld by the Constitution it cannot be assumed by the courts, or legis*769latively conferred. For the reasons stated, I dissent.

. Subsection (a) now provides that the trial judge shall fix the fine in accordance with § 40-35-112.

. These statutes, T.C.A. § 40-24-101, 40-24-102, 40-24-104, are of dubious constitutionality, and are not at issue here.