State of Tennessee v. Toney Jason Hale

The defendant, Toney Jason Hale, pled guilty in the Bedford County Circuit Court to three counts of burglary of an automobile, a Class E felony, and escape from a penal institution, a Class E felony. He committed these offenses while serving an effective ten-year sentence on probation for crimes committed in Marshall County. The defendant was sentenced as a Range I, standard offender to one year, six months for each conviction, pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement, with the issue of consecutive sentencing to be decided by the trial court. After a sentencing hearing, the trial court ordered two of the three sentences for the burglary convictions to be served concurrently with each other but consecutively to the sentence for the third conviction. The trial court further ordered these sentences to run consecutively to his sentence for the escape offense and consecutively to his previous ten-year sentence, for an effective sentence of fourteen years, six months in the Tennessee Department of Correction. On appeal, the defendant contends that the trial court erred by ordering consecutive sentences. We affirm the trial court.