State of Tennessee v. Darrell Wayne Syler

The Defendant, Darrell Wayne Syler, was convicted after a jury trial of two counts of rape of a child, one count of attempted child rape, one count of aggravated sexual battery and thirteen counts of especially aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor. The Defendant was subsequently sentenced to an effective term of twenty-nine years in the Department of Correction. In this appeal, the Defendant contends that the trial court erred in admitting a homemade videotape depicting the Defendant and his wife engaged in sex acts, and that his convictions for especially aggravated sexual exploitation must be reversed because the State failed to establish one of the statutory elements of that offense. We reduce the Defendant's sentence to an effective term of twenty-eight years, and otherwise affirm the judgments of the trial court.