Clerical Omissions Not Constituting Reversible Error

1. Law
2. Tennessee Code
3. Criminal Procedure
4. Defects in Proceedings
5. Clerical Omissions Not Constituting Reversible Error

When a person indicted or presented for a criminal offense is arraigned before a court having jurisdiction of the matter pleads not guilty, and is tried upon the merits and convicted, the person shall not be entitled to a new trial, or to an arrest of judgment, for any of the following causes:

1. The clerk of the court omitted to file or enter the person's plea of record;
2. The district attorney general, clerk or grand jury omitted to mark a prosecutor upon the indictment;
3. The clerk omitted to show in the record sent to the supreme court that there was a prosecutor;
4. A defect in making out the caption of the record;
5. An omission of any caption to the record sent up to the supreme court;
6. The clerk omitted to embody in the record the venire facias;
7. The clerk omitted to enter upon the minutes of the court that the grand jury returned the indictment into open court, if the indictment shows upon its back that it was found “a true bill”; or
8. The indictment was drawn by a district attorney general pro tempore, and the clerk omitted to enter such district attorney general's appointment upon the minutes of the court.

Code 1858, § 5242 (deriv. Acts 1851-1852, ch. 256, §§ 1-5); Shan., § 7217; Code 1932, § 11803; Acts 1981, ch. 449, § 2; T.C.A. (orig. ed.), § 40-2601.

Cross-References. Relief, effect of error, T.R.A.P. 36.

Textbooks. Tennessee Criminal Practice and Procedure (Raybin), § 33.42.

Tennessee Jurisprudence, 6 Tenn. Juris., Clerks of Court, § 10; 14 Indictments, Informations, and Presentments, §§ 10, 14; 20 Tenn. Juris., New Trials, §§ 3, 21.

Law Reviews.

Tennessee Criminal Law: An Overview of the Courts and a Compendium of Tennessee Criminal Procedure, 5 Mem. St. U.L. Rev. 90.

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