State of Tennessee v. Lawrence Brown
Lawrence Brown (“the Defendant”) was convicted of two counts of aggravated robbery, a Class B felony. The trial court sentenced the Defendant as a Range I standard offender to twelve years’ incarceration. In doing so, the trial court enhanced the Defendant’s sentence based upon the following factors: (1) the Defendant has a previous history of criminal convictions or criminal behavior; (2) the offense involved more than one victim; and (3) the Defendant had no hesitation about committing a crime when the risk to human life was high. The Defendant argues on appeal that the trial court erred when it enhanced his sentence based upon his prior convictions, which were misdemeanor traffic offenses. Because we are not permitted to assess the weight given by the trial court to enhancement factors, we conclude that the Defendant is not entitled to relief on this issue. However, because we also determine that the trial court erred in its application of the other two enhancement factors, under the particular facts of this case, we conclude that it is necessary to vacate the judgments of the trial court and remand for resentencing. |
Davidson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. David M. Jones
David M. Jones (“the Defendant”) pled guilty to one count of attempted second degree murder, with no agreement as to sentence. After a sentencing hearing, the trial court sentenced the Defendant to twelve years’ incarceration, consecutive to a prior conviction. The Defendant has appealed the length of his sentence. Upon our thorough review of the record, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. |
Montgomery | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Nicholas Larsen
The Defendant-Appellant, Nicholas Larsen, entered a guilty plea to driving under the influence of an intoxicant (DUI), a Class A misdemeanor, after the trial court denied his motion to dismiss the indictment. The transcript from the guilty plea hearing indicates that Larsen attempted to reserve a certified question of law on appeal pursuant to Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 37. Although the judgment form references an attachment setting out Larsen’s certified question of law, no such attachment appears in the appellate record. Moreover, the record contains no corrective order filed prior to the filing of the notice of appeal in this case. Because Larsen failed to properly reserve a certified question, the appeal is dismissed. |
Shelby | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Anthony Laren Tweedy III
Anthony Laren Tweedy, II (“the Defendant”) was convicted of initiation of a process to manufacture methamphetamine, manufacture of methamphetamine, felony possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of marijuana. On appeal, the Defendant requests that this Court, under a plain error review, dismiss his conviction for manufacture of methamphetamine. He also asserts that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support his convictions for initiation of a process to manufacture methamphetamine, manufacture of methamphetamine, and felony possession of drug paraphernalia. The Defendant does not appeal his conviction for possession of marijuana. After a thorough review of the record and the applicable law, we affirm the Defendant’s conviction for initiation of a process to manufacture methamphetamine. We also reduce his conviction from felony to misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and affirm as modified. However, we reverse and dismiss the Defendant’s conviction for manufacture of methamphetamine. |
Madison | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Marty Joe Kelley
Appellant, Marty Joe Kelley, appeals after a lengthy jury trial during which a Rutherford County Jury convicted him of six counts of rape of a child, three counts of aggravated sexual battery, nine counts of rape without consent, twenty-five counts of especially aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, and one count of sexual exploitation of a minor. Appellant was sentenced to an effective thirty-nine year sentence, to be served at 100%. On appeal, Appellant argues: (1) the trial court improperly allowed the State to refer to the victim as “the victim” throughout the trial; (2) the State committed prosecutorial misconduct by referring to the victim as “the victim” throughout the trial; (3) the trial court improperly restricted defense counsel’s opening statement; (4) the trial court improperly allowed a State’s witness to remain unsequestered during trial; (5) the trial court erred by denying a mistrial; (6) the trial court improperly allowed the State’s witness to display and explain a speculum during testimony about the physical examination of the victim; (7) the trial court erred by “repeatedly” allowing the State to introduce hearsay; (8) the trial court improperly charged the jury regarding the offenses of rape of a child and aggravated sexual battery; (9) the evidence was insufficient to support the convictions;(10)the trial court improperly enhanced Appellant’s sentences; and (11) the trial court erred by imposing consecutive sentences. After a thorough and complete review of the record and applicable authorities, we conclude: |
Rutherford | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Robert Donterious Conner v. State of Tennessee
Petitioner, Robert D.Conner, appeals the post-conviction court’s dismissalof his petition for post-conviction relief following an evidentiary hearing. Petitioner attacks his convictions for second degree murder and aggravated assault following a jury trial in which he was charged with first degree murder and aggravated assault. The sole ground for relief argued on appeal is that Petitioner was denied effective assistance of counsel because trial counsel failed to file a written motion pre-trial for the severance of offenses, since the charges involved two different victims and occurred on different days. After a thorough review of the parties’ briefs and the record, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court pursuant to Rule 20 of the Rules of the Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee. |
Davidson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Charles Middlebrook
Appellant, Charles Middlebrook, was indicted in two separate cases for one count of theft of property over $1,000, one count of theft of property over $500, and three counts of assault. After negotiation with the State, Appellant pled guilty to one count of theft of property over $1,000 and one count of simple assault. The remaining counts were dismissed. Appellant was sentenced to eight years as a Range III, persistent offender for the conviction for theft of property and eleven months and twenty-nine days for the conviction for assault. After a sentencing hearing, the trial court denied alternative sentencing. Appellant appeals, arguing that the trial court improperly denied an alternative sentence. Because the record supports the trial court’s finding that Appellant had a lengthy prior record and repeated unwillingness to comply with a sentence involving release in the community, we affirm the trial court’s denial of an alternative sentence. |
Knox | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Robert Fann, Jr.
After a trial by jury, the defendant was found guilty of rape, a Class B felony, and incest, a Class C felony. He was sentenced to a total effective sentence of ten years. On appeal, the defendant raises numerous challenges to his convictions and sentences. The defendant claims that the evidence is insufficient to support his convictions. However, his argument is based on alleged inconsistencies in the evidence, and conflicts in the evidence provide no basis for reversing a defendant’s convictions. The defendant claims that the trial court erred by admitting the testimony of a police officer concerning statements that the defendant made to his wife in the officer’s presence because these statements were protected by the martial privilege. However, we conclude that the statements were not privileged because the defendant had no reasonable expectation that they would remain confidential. The defendant claims that these same statements should also have been excluded because the officer did not give the defendant his Miranda warnings. However, this claim must fail because the defendant was neither in custody nor being interrogated by the police at the time the statements were made. The defendant claims that the trial court erred by admitting an exhibit containing a nurse’s handwritten notes repeating certain statements made by the victim concerning the cause of her injuries,because these statements were inadmissible under the hearsay rule. However, the trial court properly admitted the statements under the excited utterance exception to that rule. The defendant claims that the trial court erred by giving a pattern rape instruction that included references to “fellatio” and “cunnilingus” because there was no evidence presented at trial establishing that the defendant had committed either act. However, we conclude that the instruction at issue fully and accurately stated the law. The defendant argues that the trial court improperly admitted certain exhibits because no chain of custody had been established, but this argument has been waived. The defendant challenges his ten-year effective sentence as excessive, but after thorough review we can discern no error in the defendant’s sentencing. Finally, the defendant claims that the 2005 Sentencing Act is unconstitutional under Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 302 (2005), but we conclude that binding precedent firmly establishes that the 2005 Sentencing Act complies with Blakely. Consequently, we affirm the judgments of the trial court. |
Sequatchie | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Jeffrey Wade Osborne
Appellant,JeffreyOsborne,was convicted by a Williamson County jury of burglary and theft of property valued up to $500. Appellant’s sole argument on appeal is that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support his conviction of burglary because it failed to establish that Appellant lacked effective consent to enter the building that was the basis of the burglary charge. After a thorough review of the record on appeal, we find that a rational trier of fact could conclude that Appellant lacked effective consent. Therefore, we affirm the judgments of the trial court. |
Williamson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Joshua A. Randolph
Appellant, Joshua A. Randolph, was indicted by the Sumner County Grand Jury in March of 2010 for aggravated assault and domestic assault after an altercation took place at the home occupied by his estranged wife and children. Appellant was convicted by a jury of the lesser included offense of assault. He was acquitted of domestic assault. The trial court sentenced Appellant to eleven months and twenty-nine days of probation. After the denial of a motion for new trial, Appellant filed a notice of appeal. On appeal he insists that the trial court erred by failing to instruct the jury on self-defense. After a review of the record, we conclude, as the State concedes, that the trial court did err in failing to instruct the jury on self-defense where the evidence fairly raised a contested issue of fact, i.e., whether Appellant was in the home with consent of the lawful resident when the altercation took place, and therefore entitled to raise self-defense because he claimed he was attacked. As a result, the jury instructions failed to inform the jury of the applicable law. Consequently, Appellant’s conviction is reversed and remanded for a new trial. |
Sumner | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Wesley Trent Reaves
A Wayne County jury convicted Appellant, Wesley Trent Reaves, of theft of property worth more than $1,000 but less than $10,000. The trial court sentenced Appellant to eight years as a Range II, multiple offender. On appeal, Appellant argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction because the State’s witnesses were mistaken or lied during their testimonyat trial and that the trial court erred in imposing an eight-year sentence because it failed to apply a mitigating factor. We conclude that the evidence was sufficient to support the conviction and that the trier of fact is the sole arbiter of the credibility of the witnesses. We also determine that although the trial court erred in failing to apply the mitigating factor in question, Appellant’s criminal history more than supports the imposition of an eight-year sentence. Therefore, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. |
Wayne | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Monroe James Dodson, Jr.
Appellant, Monroe James Dodson, Jr. and his co-defendants were indicted by the Davidson County Grand Jury for three counts of aggravated rape, two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, two counts of aggravated robbery, one count of aggravated burglary, and one count of possession of a weapon during the commission of a felony. Appellant pled guilty to one count of aggravated rape, two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, two counts of aggravated robbery, one count of aggravated burglary, and one count of employing a weapon during a felony with prior convictions. The trial court held a separate sentencing hearing and sentenced Appellant to an effective sentence of eighty-two years. Appellant appeals both the length of his sentences and the imposition of consecutive sentences. After a review of the record on appeal, we have determined that the enhancement factors used by the trial court were supported by the record and that, therefore, the length of the sentences is affirmed. We also conclude that the record on appeal supports the trial court’s conclusion that Appellant is a dangerous offender and that consecutive sentences are warranted in his case. For these reasons, we affirm the judgments of the trial court. |
Davidson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Shirea Barber
The Defendant, Shirea Barber, was convicted by a Shelby County Criminal Court jury of driving under the influence, a Class A misdemeanor. See T.C.A. § 55-10-401 (2010). The trial court sentenced the Defendant to eleven months and twenty-nine days, with ten days’ confinement and the remainder on probation. On appeal, the Defendant contends that the evidence is insufficient to support her conviction. We affirm the judgment of the trial court. |
Shelby | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Mario Bateman v. State of Tennessee
The Petitioner, Mario Bateman, appeals from the Shelby County Criminal Court’s denial of post-conviction relief from his conviction for first degree murder and resulting life sentence. On appeal, the Petitioner contends that he did not receive the effective assistance of counsel. We affirm the judgment of the trial court. |
Shelby | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Janice Gates
The Defendant, Janice Gates, pled guilty to two counts of vehicular homicide, a Class C felony. The trial court sentenced the Defendant as a Range I, standard offender, to a concurrent sentence of six years for each conviction and ordered her to serve eighteen months in confinement before being released on probation for the remainder of the sentence. On appeal, the Defendant argues that the trial court erred by denying a sentence of full probation. Following our review, we affirm the judgments of the trial court. |
Shelby | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Leonard Miller
The Defendant, Leonard Miller, appeals the Madison County Circuit Court’s order revoking his probation for aggravated burglary and theft of property valued at $1000 or more but less than $10,000 and ordering the remainder of his ten-year sentence into execution. We affirm the judgment of the trial court. |
Madison | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Dewayne Collier aka Patrick Collier
Following a Shelby County jury trial, the Defendant, DeWayne Collier, was convicted of aggravated statutory rape. At the time of the crime, the Defendant was forty-two years old and the victim was fourteen years old. The trial court sentenced the Defendant to four years as a Range II, multiple offender. On appeal, the Defendant argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion for judgment of acquittal and that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction because the fourteen-year-old victim was an accomplice and there was not sufficient corroborating evidence. After a thorough review of the record on appeal, we conclude that the victim is legally an accomplice regardless of the fact that she cannot be indicted for her own statutory rape. However, we also determine that there is additional evidence to adequately corroborate her testimony. Therefore, we conclude that the evidence is sufficient to support the Defendant’s conviction. We affirm the judgment of the trial court. |
Shelby | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Willie Perry Jr. v. State of Tennessee
The petitioner, Willie Perry, Jr., pled guilty to two counts of theft of property valued $1,000 or more but less than $10,000, each a Class D felony, and was sentenced to serve, in prison, two twelve-year sentences to run concurrently with each other. The petitioner brought this post-conviction petition, seeking relief on the basis that his trial counsel failed to investigate and advise him regarding the possibility that the property was valued at less than $1,000. The post-conviction trial court denied the claim, and the petitioner appeals the denial of relief and the trial court’s refusal to admit certain evidence regarding the property’s value. After a thorough review of the record, we affirm. |
Madison | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Willie Perry Jr. v. State of Tennessee - Concurring
I concur in the results reached in the majority opinion. Indeed, I join in the majority opinion on all but one issue. I write separately to address the issue of the appropriate standard of review by this Court on hearsay evidentiary issues. The majority applies an abuse of discretion standard of review to the hearsay issue in this case. |
Madison | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Quinton Albert Cage v. David Sexton, Warden
The Petitioner, Quinton Albert Cage, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging that his convictions and sentences were illegal because the United States Constitution did not authorize the Tennessee Legislature to create criminal statutes. Upon motion by the State, the habeas court dismissed the petition without an evidentiary hearing, finding that the Petitioner failed to demonstrate that his judgments were facially void and noting that nothing on the face of the judgments indicated that the underlying sentences were invalid. Following our review of the record and applicable authorities, we affirm the summary dismissal by the habeas court. |
Johnson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Terry Lewis v. State of Tennessee
The pro se petitioner, Terry Lewis, appeals the Davidson County Criminal Court’s summary dismissal of his petition for writ of error coram nobis attacking his convictions for first degree murder and attempted robbery. Petitioner claims that a report indicating that authorities performed a fingerprint analysis on a shell casing found near petitioner’s apartment is new evidence. Following our review of the record, the parties’ briefs, and the applicable law, we affirm the judgment of the coram nobis court. |
Davidson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Devonte Black
The Defendant, Devonte Black, pled guilty to aggravated burglary, a Class C felony. The trial court sentenced the Defendant to one year of incarceration followed by three years on probation after release from confinement. On appeal, the Defendant contends that the trial court erred when it imposed a sentence of split confinement, specifically when it: (1) denied full probation; and (2) denied judicial diversion. After a thorough review of the record and relevant authorities, we conclude the trial court properly sentenced the Defendant. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s judgment. |
Shelby | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Demp Douglas
A Lake County jury convicted the Defendant, Demp Douglas, of one count of aggravated assault, and the trial court sentenced him to ten years in the Tennessee Department of Correction. On appeal, the Defendant contends that the evidence is insufficient to sustain his conviction and that the trial court erred when it denied his motion for a mistrial based upon the victim’s testimony that he met the Defendant shortly after the Defendant was released from prison. After a thorough review of the record and relevant authorities, we affirm the trial court’s judgment. |
Madison | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Timothy L. Dulworth v. State of Tennessee
The Petitioner, Timothy L. Dulworth, appeals the Lake County Circuit Court’s dismissal of his petition seeking a writ of habeas corpus. The Petitioner contends that his convictions are void. Upon a review of the record in this case, we conclude that the habeas court properly denied the petition for habeas corpus relief. Accordingly, the judgment of the habeas corpus court is affirmed. |
Lake | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Timothy L. Rose v. State of Tennessee
Seeking relief from the Sullivan County Criminal Court’s dismissal of his petition for post-conviction relief from his 2008 conviction of attempted aggravated robbery, Timothy L. Rose appeals and claims that his plea of guilty to the conviction offense is invalid because it was the product of ineffective assistance of counsel and was unknowingly and involuntarily made. The record, however, supports the post-conviction court’s findings and its denial of post-conviction relief. For that reason, we affirm the post-conviction court’s denial of relief. |
Sullivan | Court of Criminal Appeals |
