State of Tennessee v. Victor Eugene Tyson

The Davidson County Grand Jury indicted the Defendant for first degree premeditated murder, felony murder, attempted first degree murder and five counts of reckless endangerment. A Davidson County jury found the Defendant guilty of second degree murder, felony murder, attempted first degree murder and five counts of reckless endangerment. After merging the Defendant's convictions for second degree murder and felony murder, the trial court sentenced the Defendant to life imprisonment. The trial court sentenced the Defendant to thirty-five years for the attempted first degree murder conviction to be served consecutively to the life sentence. The trial court merged the five reckless endangerment convictions and sentenced the Defendant to three years to be served concurrently with the other sentences. The Defendant now appeals, arguing the following: (1) that the trial court erred by failing to instruct the jury on all lesser-included offenses; (2) that the trial court erred by denying the Defendant's motion to suppress a photographic lineup; (3) that insufficient evidence was presented at trial to support the Defendant's convictions; (4) that trial counsel was ineffective; and (5) that the trial court improperly assumed that as a matter of law, the sentences in this case must be served consecutively to a prior federal sentence. Concluding that the trial court committed reversible error (the State concedes), by failing to instruct the jury on certain lesser-included offenses of premeditated murder, felony murder and attempted first degree murder, we reverse those three convictions and remand Counts 1, 2, and 3 to the trial court for a new trial. We affirm the conviction for reckless endangerment in Count 4 and the three year sentence imposed in that count. We also remand Count 4 for the trial court to determine whether the sentence imposed in Count 4 should be served concurrently with or consecutively to the Defendant's federal sentence.