State of Tennessee v. Ashley N. Menke

This appeal concerns Section 5 of the Public Safety Act of 2016, which took effect on January 1, 2017, and amended Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-14-105, the statute providing for grading of theft offenses.  In 2016, before the amended statute took effect, Ashley N. Menke, the defendant, entered a guilty plea without a recommended sentence for, among other things, theft of property in the amount of $1,000 or more but less than $10,000, a Class D felony at the time of the offense.  In sentencing the defendant after the amendment’s effective date, the trial court applied the amended version of the statute, which graded theft in the amount of $1,000 or less as a Class A misdemeanor, and sentenced the defendant accordingly for her theft of exactly $1,000.  The State appealed, and the Court of Criminal Appeals vacated the sentence and remanded to the trial court for resentencing within the applicable range for a Class D felony and consecutive alignment with the sentences for some of the defendant’s other charges.  We granted the defendant’s application for permission to appeal in this case with direction to the parties to particularly address the following issues: (1) whether the State was entitled to pursue an appeal as of right from the trial court’s decision, and (2) whether the Criminal Savings Statute, Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-11-112, should apply to the amendments of the theft grading statute.  We conclude that the State had a statutory right to appeal the sentence pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-402(b)(1).  We further conclude, unlike the Court of Criminal Appeals, that the Criminal Savings Statute applies to the amendments to Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-14-105.  Thus, the amended theft grading statute was appropriately applied by the trial court even though the offense occurred before the amendment’s effective date.  Therefore, the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.