Circuit Watcher

07-5942 Carter v. Burns
Middle District of Tennessee at Nashville
Before: MARTIN and NORRIS, Circuit Judges; STAMP, District Judge.¹
BOYCE F. MARTIN, Circuit Judge. John E. Carter, a Tennessee prisoner proceeding pro se, appeals a district court judgment dismissing his civil rights action filed under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. This case has been referred to a panel of the court pursuant to Rule 34(j)(1), Rules of the Sixth Circuit. Upon examination, this panel unanimously agrees that oral argument is not needed. Fed. R. App. P. 34(a).
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Carter brought this § 1983 action against fourteen judges and justices of the Tennessee Criminal Court, Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals, and Tennessee Supreme Court in their official capacities. Carter sought a declaratory order that the State of Tennessee is constitutionally mandated to provide him with an adequate corrective process to bring a constitutional challenge to his convictions following the clarification of the “premeditation” and “deliberation” elements of first-degree murder in State v. Brown, 836 S.W.2d 530, 537-43 (Tenn. 1992). Since the Brown clarification, Carter has filed numerous habeas corpus and other post-conviction challenges to his convictions in state court, in which his Brown-based constitutional claims have been rejected as not cognizable in the type of proceeding in which he brought them or as barred by the statute of limitations. According to Carter, the Tennessee statutes governing collateral review, Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 29-21-107, 40-26-105, 40-30-107, and 40-30-117, “facially and/or as enforced and applied,” are unconstitutional under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments because these statutes deprive him of all opportunity for judicial review and redress of his Brown-based constitutional claims. …the district court’s opinion is affirmed in part and vacated in part, and this case is remanded for further proceedings. Carter v. Burns.

1. The Honorable Frederick P. Stamp, Jr., United States District Judge for the Northern District of West Virginia, sitting by designation. [↩]