376 S.W.2d 478 | Tenn. | 1964
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Plaintiffs in Error, Hethcoat and Hicks, were convicted in the Criminal Court of Sullivan County of receiving and concealing stolen property and sentenced to three years in the State penitentiary. Plaintiff in error, Miller, was convicted of grand larceny growing out of the same state of facts and likewise sentenced to serve three years in the State penitentiary.
The conviction of Miller was affirmed by this Court at its May session in 1962. The opinion affirming his conviction is reported in 210 Tenn. 322, 358 S.W.2d 324. The convictions of Hethcoat and Hicks were affirmed by this Court on November 9, 1962, by an opinion filed on that date, but it was not for publication. Subsequent to these convictions and the affirmance of them by this Court, we entered an order staying the execution of the convictions of these three men so that they might file a petition for probation. Petitions for probation were subsequently filed with the trial court and the same were denied. The denial was based on the fact that the parties
The probation statutes (sec. 40-2901 through sec. 40-2908, T.C.A.) were amended by Chapter 192 of the Public Acts of 1963. These amendments have now been codified and carried into the Cumulative Supplement of the Code under these Sections. We originally granted a stay of execution because it was said by counsel representing petitioners that the 1963 amendment gave them a right to petition for probation before beginning the service of their sentences. We have considered this question with reference to the amendments to these probation statutes and do not find in any particular where probation is allowed by them after the trial court has lost jurisdiction of the cases by an appeal of the parties to this Court.
In Atchley v. State, 176 Tenn. 514, 144 S.W.2d 748, in a very well written opinion, this Court held that after an appeal and the case had been brought to this Court, the trial court no longer had jurisdiction to apply the parole statutes, and to suspend or give parole sentences. This opinion (Atchley v. State, supra) cannot be improved upon. It is applicable to the statutes as now written and applicable to the factual situation set out in these cases.
In a more recent case, Helton v. State, 195 Tenn. 491, 260 S.W.2d 260, this Court held that under these parole
The plaintiffs in error apparently recognized the authority of the Atchley case, and others, and have now requested that we remand these cases to the trial court very much as was done in Stanley v. State, 171 Tenn. 406, 104 S.W.2d 819, so that the trial judge might exercise his right of suspension or parole. The Stanley case is referred to and properly distinguished in the Atchley case, supra. In the Stanley case the Court in considering Stanley’s appeal did not enter a final judgment, but remanded it for this purpose for reasons therein expressed. In the instant case we have an entirely different situation. Here these eases against the present plaintiffs in error are final judgments from every standpoint. In the Miller case the judgment was entered in June, 1962, while the judgments in the Hetheoat. and Hicks cases were entered in November, 1962. This Court, as well as other courts of lower jurisdiction, lose control or jurisdiction over its final judgments when the term is ended or when there has been an expiration of thirty days. State v. Dalton, 109 Tenn. 544, 72 S.W. 456. We consequently have no jurisdiction after final judgments have been rendered in these cases to remand them so that the trial judge might enter any other or different order.
One of the first reported cases on this question was Anderson v. Thompson, 75 Tenn. (7 Lea), 259, where
The result is that the judgment against these, three plaintiffs in error must be affirmed and the stay heretofore granted is revoked and the clerk is directed to issue the necessary papers to take these three plaintiffs in .error into custody so that the judgments formerly approved by this Court heretofore referred to may be executed.