04/20/94 Sedley Alley V. State Tennessee

Appellant, Sedley Alley, appeals as of right from the dismissal of his petition for post-conviction relief by the Shelby County Criminal Court. On March 18, 1987, appellant was convicted of and sentenced to death for the brutal killing of nineteen year-old Suzanne Marie Collins, a Marine lance corporal stationed at Millington Naval Base. *fn1 Appellant also received consecutive forty-year sentences for aggravated kidnapping and aggravated rape. On August 7, 1989, the Supreme Court of Tennessee affirmed the verdict in State v. Alley, 776 S.W.2d 506 (Tenn. 1989) and, on February 21, 1990, ordered that his execution be carried out on May 2, 1990. *fn2 On April 25, 1990, appellant filed a pro se petition for post-conviction relief. Counsel was appointed, and, after a series of hearings in which the trial court ruled on various defense motions, evidentiary hearings were held on March 1st and 15th and April 5th, 26th, and 29th, 1991. On September 23, 1991, the trial court entered findings of fact and law denying the petition for post-conviction relief.