State of Tennessee v. Thomas L. Cope

Following a bench trial, the defendant, Thomas L. Cope, was convicted of reckless aggravated assault, reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon, violation of the open container law, and failure to yield the right of way.  The reckless endangerment conviction was merged into the aggravated assault conviction, for which the defendant was sentenced to three years at 30% and a concurrent sentence of thirty days for failure to yield the right of way.  The effective three-year sentence was ordered to be served by split confinement with 210 days’ incarceration with the balance of the sentence served on supervised probation.  He was fined $50 for violation of the open container law, with the same punishment for his conviction for failure to yield.  On appeal, the defendant argues that the evidence is insufficient to sustain his conviction for reckless aggravated assault. Following our review, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.