State of Tennessee Henry Circuit v. Brenda Anne Burns

Defendant/appellee Brenda Burns was tried and convicted of criminal responsibility for the commission of first-degree murder in the death of her ex-husband, Paul Burns.1 The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction on the basis that trial counsel was ineffective in failing to interview two potential defense witnesses and present the testimony of those witnesses before the jury. The State filed an Application for Permission to Appeal contesting the intermediate court’s reversal of the defendant’s conviction on that basis. The defendant filed a Cross-Application for Permission to Appeal raising, among other issues, whether the trial court had committed reversible error by failing to instruct the jury on the lesser-included offenses of facilitation of a felony (i.e., first-degree murder), Tenn. Code Ann. § 39- 11-403 (1991), and solicitation to commit a criminal offense (i.e., first-degree murder), Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-12-102 (1991). We granted both Applications in order to address these important issues.