Trista Larue Denton, et al. v. Christopher Lorn Phelps

Orders of Protection were either largely ignored or scornfully defied by the defendant with the sometime quiescense of the plaintiff who was possibly afflicted with the Stockholm Syndrome. Her father intervened and presented a motion for contempt against the defendant which resulted in the defendant's conviction of eleven (11) instances of criminal contempt. The defendant refused to attend the trial because of his later asserted and ill-based fear that he would not have a fair trial, and he was tried in absentia. Days later, he was tried and convicted of another nine (9) discrete violations of the Order of Protection. The defendant assails the first convictions as violative of his constitutional rights. In light of State v. Far, 51 S.W.3d 222 (Tenn. Ct. Crim. App. 2001) "that a trial in absentia [is allowable] only when the defendant is first present at trial" the eleven (11) convictions at the first trial are reversed. The nine (9) convictions at the second trial are affirmed.