Background
William Rolandus Keel was indicted in 2013 on two counts of rape of a child in violation of Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-522. His first trial in March 2015 ended in a hung jury and mistrial. At a second trial in December 2015, Keel was convicted as charged and sentenced to 60 years imprisonment. His motion for a new trial was denied. Keel filed a direct appeal challenging the trial court’s evidentiary rulings and the sentence, which this court affirmed; the Tennessee Supreme Court denied permission to appeal.
Keel then filed a post-conviction petition asserting ineffective assistance of trial counsel, which was initially denied. This court remanded for a new hearing, finding Keel had been denied the opportunity to testify. After a second post-conviction hearing, the trial court again denied relief, and this court affirmed. In 2025, Keel filed two pro se petitions for writ of habeas corpus. The habeas corpus court summarily dismissed both petitions without an evidentiary hearing. Keel appealed both dismissals, which were consolidated for review.
In his first habeas petition, Keel argued his indictment was “fatally defective” because the victim did not testify before the grand jury and no minutes of the grand jury proceedings existed. In his second petition, filed months later, Keel alleged his sentence was void due to prosecutorial misconduct and reliance on perjured testimony.
The Court’s Holding
The court affirmed the summary dismissal of both petitions on two independent grounds. First, Keel failed to comply with mandatory procedural requirements under Tennessee Code Annotated section 29-21-107(b)(2), which requires a habeas petitioner to attach the judgment or indictment to the petition so that a reviewing court can determine from the face of the judgment alone whether it is void. Keel did not include the full indictment despite claiming defects in its language. The court emphasized that strict compliance with these requirements is mandatory even for pro se petitioners and that courts may not take judicial notice of prior appellate records to cure such omissions.
Second, the court held that even assuming Keel’s allegations were true, none of them state a cognizable claim for habeas corpus relief. Tennessee law permits indictments based on hearsay testimony, so the victim’s absence from the grand jury did not render the indictment defective. The failure to spread the indictment upon the court’s minutes is a ministerial or form defect that does not invalidate the indictment or affect the court’s jurisdiction. Alleged prosecutorial misconduct, including reliance on perjured testimony, requires proof beyond the face of the record and thus challenges only a voidable judgment, not a void one. Habeas corpus is available only for void judgments—those in which the court lacked jurisdiction or authority on the face of the record, or where the sentence has expired.
The court also rejected Keel’s contention that the grand jury’s secrecy (reflected in the absence of recorded minutes) undermined the legitimacy of the proceeding itself. Tennessee law has long recognized that grand jury proceedings are kept secret and are not recorded; the statute requiring the indictment to be spread upon court minutes is merely a precaution against loss of the original indictment and does not go to the substance of the conviction.
Key Takeaways
- Habeas corpus relief in Tennessee is available only to challenge void judgments (those lacking jurisdiction or with expired sentences), not voidable judgments that are facially valid but may be invalid based on evidence outside the record.
- A petitioner’s failure to include required documents—the judgment and indictment—with a habeas corpus petition is a fatal procedural defect that permits summary dismissal, even for pro se petitioners.
- Tennessee law permits indictments based entirely on hearsay testimony; the victim’s absence from grand jury proceedings does not render an indictment defective.
- Defects in grand jury procedure that do not go to the court’s jurisdiction (such as failure to spread the indictment on court minutes) are matters of form, not substance, and do not justify habeas relief.
- Prosecutorial misconduct and reliance on perjured testimony are not cognizable claims in habeas corpus and must be raised through direct appeal or post-conviction relief procedures.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the narrow scope of habeas corpus relief in Tennessee and the critical distinction between void and voidable judgments. For criminal defendants seeking to overturn convictions, the ruling clarifies that irregularities in grand jury procedure—even significant ones—cannot be remedied through habeas corpus unless they go to the trial court’s fundamental jurisdiction. The decision also underscores that post-conviction remedies are the proper vehicles for challenging evidentiary sufficiency before the grand jury, prosecutorial misconduct, and claims of perjured testimony, not habeas corpus.
The opinion also addresses an important procedural trap for pro se litigants: strict compliance with the technical requirements for filing a habeas petition is mandatory and cannot be relaxed or supplemented by judicial notice of prior appellate records. This may limit access to habeas relief for indigent or unrepresented petitioners who are unfamiliar with filing requirements, as the court will dismiss the petition on procedural grounds without reaching the merits if the judgment or indictment is not attached.