Bryiant C. Overton v. State of TennesseeBryiant C. Overton v. State of Tennessee
ROBERT L. HOLLOWAY, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which J. ROSS DYER and MATTHEW J. WILSON, JJ., joined.
Bryiant C. Overton, Nashville, Tennessee, Pro Se.
Jonathan Skrmetti, Attorney General and Reporter; Kelly M. Telfeyan, Assistant Attorney General; Jennings H. Jones, District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.
OPINION
Factual and Procedural Background
This case relates to an incident that occurred in December 2007, in which the victim arranged a drug deal at the request of one of Petitioner‘s co-defendants. State v. Overton, No. M2009-01977-CCA-R3-CD, 2011 WL 538857, at *1 (Tenn. Crim. App. Feb. 15, 2011). After the transaction was completed, Petitioner stated that he had an issue with the dealer, and he demanded that the victim call the dealer and take him to the dealer‘s residence. Id. at *8. Petitioner then asked one of his co-defendants for a gun. The co-defendant handed the gun to Petitioner across the victim while the victim sat between the two men in the backseat of a vehicle. Id. The co-defendant stated that “somebody was
Based upon this incident, a Rutherford County jury convicted Petitioner of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated robbery, attempted first degree murder, and conspiracy to commit kidnapping, for which Petitioner is currently serving an effective forty-eight year sentence. Overton v. State, No. M2016-00783-CCA-R3-PC, 2018 WL 287176, at *1 (Tenn. Crim. App. Jan. 4, 2018). Petitioner‘s judgments of conviction were entered in June 2009, and Petitioner filed a notice of appeal with this court in September 2009. Upon review, this court affirmed his convictions but remanded the case for correction of a sentencing error. Overton, 2011 WL 538857, at *9.
After the denial of his direct appeal, Petitioner filed a petition for post-conviction relief. Overton, 2018 WL 287176, at *1. One of the issues raised in his post-conviction petition related to the credibility of the victim. Id. at *1-2. Petitioner testified in the post-conviction hearing that inconsistencies existed between the victim‘s recorded statement to the police, her preliminary hearing testimony, and her trial testimony. Id. He asserted that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to raise these issues at trial. Id. Following a hearing, the post-conviction court denied relief, and this court affirmed the decision of the post-conviction court in an opinion filed January 4, 2018. Id. at *3, *7.
Over seven years later, on September 12, 2025, Petitioner filed a document entitled, “Post-Conviction Petition (Tenn. House Bill 601 (2025))[.]” In the petition, he asserted that he was entitled to a new trial because “the prosecution knowingly relied on false material testimony without correcting it, contrary to established law in Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959).” Petitioner alleged that the victim‘s testimony at trial “directly contradicted her own pretrial recorded statement” and that the State failed to correct the false testimony. The alleged discrepancy in the victim‘s account concerned when Petitioner first possessed the gun used to shoot her. According to Petitioner, the victim told Detective Ty Downing in a recorded statement that Petitioner obtained the gun from a co-defendant after they arrived at the remote location where the victim was shot; however, the victim testified at trial that the co-defendant gave Petitioner the gun before they drove to the location of the shooting.
Petitioner asserted that the petition was timely and cognizable “under newly enacted . . . House Bill 601, which permits post-conviction relief based on ‘actual innocence’ supported by new evidence not previously known to the judge or jury” and which allows a petition for post-conviction relief to be filed “at any time” under those circumstances. Petitioner argued that the victim‘s recorded statement to police was “new evidence” because it was not presented to the jury or judge and that neither the jury nor judge knew that the victim had originally given a contrary account. He further argued that this “new evidence” established he was actually innocent of the offenses for which he was convicted because, without the victim‘s allegedly false testimony, the State had no basis for the charges.
The Rutherford County Circuit Court interpreted the petition as one for writ of error coram nobis and entered an order denying relief on October 24, 2025. The circuit court concluded that the petition did not successfully allege newly discovered evidence of actual innocence and that the petition was not filed within the applicable statute of limitations. Specifically, the circuit court held that regardless of whether the evidence was presented to the jury and the court at trial, it was not “newly discovered” because the “issue was raised in . . . Petitioner‘s original post-conviction hearing in 2016,” during which Petitioner “testified that the victim‘s statements to police before trial were inconsistent with her preliminary hearing testimony and trial testimony.” The circuit court found that the petition was filed outside the applicable statute of limitations and that because the “‘newly discovered evidence of actual innocence’ was known to [Petitioner] in at least 2016,” the petition was time-barred. Additionally, the court concluded that coram nobis relief was not warranted because “the same evidence that form[ed] the basis of [the petition] was litigated, unsuccessfully, in . . . Petitioner‘s post-conviction petition” and because “[t]he error coram nobis statutory framework precludes the use of coram nobis petitions to relitigate issues already addressed in post-conviction proceedings.”
Petitioner‘s notice of appeal was filed on November 25, 2025.
Analysis
On appeal, Petitioner contends that the circuit court abused its discretion by “re-characterizing” his petition as one for coram nobis relief, by dismissing the petition as time-barred, and by treating prior post-conviction proceedings as a procedural bar. In response, the State first contends that the instant appeal should be dismissed as untimely. Alternatively, the State asserts that the circuit court properly dismissed the coram nobis petition because it was untimely and because Petitioner was not entitled to due process tolling.
Timeliness of Petitioner‘s notice of appeal
Because Petitioner is incarcerated and representing himself,
Here, the circuit court entered an order denying relief on October 24, 2025. Because the thirty-day deadline (November 23, 2025) fell on a weekend, Petitioner had until Monday, November 24, 2025, to timely file his notice of appeal. Petitioner‘s notice of appeal was filed on November 25, 2025, rendering it untimely by one day.
In a reply brief, Petitioner asserts that the notice of appeal was timely filed under the prison mailbox rule. Petitioner contends that he placed the document into the institutional mailing system on November 21, 2025, several days before the filing deadline, and that “[a]ny delay caused by prison mail processing or courthouse intake procedures should not operate to deprive Petitioner of review.” Although the notice of appeal does not specifically state it was delivered to the appropriate person at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution on November 21, 2025, Petitioner‘s assertion that he placed the document into the institutional mailing system on that date is supported by the fact that the notice of appeal contains a certificate of service, in which Petitioner certified that the pleading was delivered by U.S. Mail on November 21, 2025.
Even assuming that the notice of appeal was untimely, there was only a one-day delay in filing, and the issues presented for review involve Petitioner‘s claim that newly discovered evidence establishes he is actually innocent of the serious felony offenses for which he stands convicted. Thus, we conclude that waiver of the timeliness requirement is appropriate in this case. See Broyld, 2005 WL 3543415, at *1.
Denial of coram nobis relief
A writ of error coram nobis in criminal cases is an “extraordinary procedural remedy,” filling only a “slight gap into which few cases fall.” State v. Mixon, 983 S.W.2d 661, 672 (Tenn. 1999). “The relief is ‘confined to error dehors the record’ and ‘matters that were not and could not have been litigated’ in the trial, the appeal, or any other type of post-conviction proceeding.” Clardy v. State, 691 S.W.3d 390, 400 (Tenn. 2024) (quoting
Error coram nobis relief is only available “[u]pon a showing by the defendant that the defendant was without fault in failing to present certain evidence at the proper time.”
Petitions for writ of error coram nobis are subject to a one-year statute of limitations.
“To qualify as ‘actually innocent’ under [Tennessee Code Annotated section]
Initially, Petitioner argues that the circuit court abused its discretion by “re-characterizing” his petition as one for coram nobis relief. While labeled as a post-conviction petition, Petitioner repeatedly cited Tennessee House Bill 601 (2025) as the basis for relief. In the petition, he asserted that House Bill 601 was codified at
In denying relief, the circuit court correctly found that the petition was not filed within the applicable statute of limitations for coram nobis petitions. It appears from the record that the limitations period normally would have begun to run sometime between July and September 2009.1 Thus, the one-year statute of limitations would have expired, at the latest, in September 2010, approximately fifteen years before the filing of the petition for writ of error coram nobis. The petition was clearly untimely.
Moreover, Petitioner failed to establish that he was entitled to tolling of the statute of limitations. As found by the circuit court, the evidence of the victim‘s recorded statement to police was not “newly discovered” as the record reflects that Petitioner knew of this evidence during his post-conviction hearing in 2016, if not earlier. Furthermore, the alleged newly discovered evidence set out in the petition, even if true, does not clearly and convincingly establish that Petitioner is actually innocent of the offenses for which he was convicted. Clardy, 691 S.W.3d at 407. Accordingly, the circuit court properly concluded that the petition was time-barred.
Finally, Petitioner asserts that the circuit court improperly treated his prior post-conviction proceedings “as a procedural bar.” We disagree. In its order denying relief, the
Conclusion
Based upon the foregoing, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court.
s/Robert L. Holloway, Jr.
ROBERT L. HOLLOWAY, JR., JUDGE