Gaile K. Owens and Pervis T. Payne, Appellants/appellees v. State of Tennessee, Appellee/appellant

Summary

The Tennessee Supreme Court held that Tenn. Code Ann. Sec. 40-14-207(b), which authorizes a trial court in an ex parte hearing to fund investigative and expert services necessary to protect an indigent capital defendant's constitutional rights, applies to capital post-conviction cases because the Post-Conviction Procedure Act incorporates by reference the counsel-compensation provisions of Title 40, chapter 14, part 2, and the Legislature is presumed to have intended the 1984 subsection to reach post-conviction proceedings; prior cases reading the statute as trial-limited were expressly overruled. The Court further held that a petitioner who files a written motion meeting the specificity requirements of Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 13, Sec. 2(B)(10) is entitled to an ex parte hearing, and the motion should be granted only upon specific factual proof that the services are necessary to establish a ground for relief unavailable by other evidence, while declining to reach the inherent-power and constitutional arguments. It reversed in part and remanded for the trial courts to determine whether the petitioners satisfied the procedural prerequisites. Special Judge Samuel L. Lewis, joined by Justice Drowota, dissented, contending that the statutes' plain language and Rule 13's definition of a capital case confine expert-services funding to criminal trials and that no constitutional provision supplies the missing authority.