State of Tennessee v. Carmi Binkins

Following a jury trial, Defendant, Carmi Binkins, was convicted of two counts of attempted second
degree murder, a Class B felony; two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, a Class A felony; and one count of aggravated assault, a Class C felony. The trial court merged the aggravated assault conviction with one of the attempted murder convictions and sentenced Defendant as a Range I, standard offender to twelve years for each of the attempted second degree murder convictions and to twenty-four years at 100 percent for each of the especially aggravated kidnapping convictions. The court ordered that the especially aggravated kidnapping convictions be served concurrently with the attempted murder convictions but consecutively to each other, for an effective sentence of fortyeight years at 100 percent in the Department of Correction. On appeal, Defendant argues that (1) his right to confrontation was violated when a crying victim was allowed to display his injuries to the jury despite being found incompetent to testify; and (2) the trial court provided erroneous instructions on the elements of especially aggravated kidnapping when answering a question from the jury. The State argues that the defendant has waived the issues by failing to include an adequate record on appeal and that the trial court’s jury instructions were proper. After a thorough review of the record, we affirm Defendant’s convictions but remand to the trial court for entry of corrected judgment forms to reflect that count four is to be served concurrently with count two and that Defendant’s especially aggravated kidnapping sentences are to be served at 100 percent release eligibility.