State of Tennessee v. Amilcar Crabeal Butler
The Petitioner, Amilcar Crabeal Butler, appeals the trial court’s dismissal of his motion to correct an illegal sentence. On appeal, the Petitioner asserts that the trial court’s dismissal was improper because the trial court relied on State v. Brown, 479 S.W.3d 200 (Tenn. 2015), which the Petitioner argues was wrongly decided. After a thorough review of the record, we affirm the dismissal of the petition in accordance with Rule 20, Rules of the Court of Criminal Appeals. |
Davidson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Christopher D. Neighbours v. State of Tennessee
Christopher D. Neighbours (“the Petitioner”) appeals the Davidson County Criminal Court’s denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. The Petitioner contends that: (1)his due process rights were violated when the State failed to disclose a “potential plea deal” between the State and a cooperating co-defendant, who testified against the Petitioner at trial; (2) he received ineffective assistance of counsel based upon trial counsel’s failure to object to the prosecutor’s vouching for a witness during closing argument; (3) appellate counsel was ineffective based upon counsel’s failure to appeal the imposition of consecutive sentencing; and (4) appellate counsel had an actual conflict of interest when he represented the Petitioner on direct appeal. Upon review, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court. |
Davidson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Antonio J. Beasley, Sr.
The defendant, Antonio J. Beasley, Sr., appeals the summary denial of his motion, filed pursuant to Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 36, to correct perceived clerical errors in the challenged judgments. Discerning no error, we affirm. |
Hamilton | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Donna Nance McLucas v. Shawn Michael Nance
Defendant in an unlawful detainer action filed a counterclaim against the plaintiff. Two days later, the plaintiff filed a notice of voluntary nonsuit, but the certificate of service on the notice indicated it was placed in the mail the same day that the counterclaim was filed. Based on the notice of voluntary dismissal, the trial court entered an order dismissing the action without prejudice. Defendant appeals, arguing that he should be permitted to proceed with his counterclaim. We affirm. |
Macon | Court of Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Sherry Dewitt
Following a jury trial, the Defendant, Sherry Dewitt, was acquitted of aggravated child abuse but convicted of aggravated child neglect. She now appeals as of right from that conviction, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the requisite mental state for that crime and that the child suffered an adverse effect to her health and welfare from the Defendant’s alleged neglect as statutorily required. Following our review, we conclude that the evidence was sufficient to support a knowing mens rea, but we reverse the Defendant’s conviction because there was insufficient proof that the Defendant’s delay in informing the parents about the child’s injuries or in seeking medical help had an actual, deleterious effect on the child’s health and welfare. Therefore, the judgment is vacated, and the charge is dismissed. |
Davidson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
William James Watt v. State of Tennessee
The petitioner, William James Watt, appeals the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief, which challenged his 2012 Davidson County Criminal Court jury convictions of three counts of rape of a child and three counts of aggravated sexual battery, claiming that he was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel at trial and on appeal. Discerning no reversible error, we affirm the denial of post-conviction relief. |
Davidson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
In Re Tamera W., et al.
Mother and Father appeal from the trial court‘s finding that clear and convincing evidence exists to establish that the children at issue are dependent and neglected and the victims of severe abuse at both parents‘ hands. Discerning no error, we affirm. |
Shelby | Court of Appeals | |
Shane Seth Ghorley v. Brandi Lynn Ghorley
This appeal, which stems from a divorce action, involves issues of child support and an award of attorney’s fees. The father asserts error in the trial court’s decision to award to the mother attorney’s fees in the amount of $25,000 as alimony in solido. The father also argues that his co-parenting time with the children was not properly calculated when setting his child support obligation. Following our thorough review of the evidence in light of the statutory factors, we conclude that the trial court properly awarded $25,000 for attorney’s fees to the mother as alimony in solido. We also determine, however, that the permanent parenting plan order entered by the trial court contains an internal inconsistency. We therefore vacate the permanent parenting plan order and remand to the trial court for entry of an appropriate and internally consistent permanent parenting plan order. |
Monroe | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. James Allen Gooch
The Appellant, James Allen Gooch, is appealing the trial court’s order dismissing his motion to correct an illegal sentence filed pursuant to Rule of Criminal Procedure Rule 36.1 The State has filed a motion asking this Court to affirm pursuant to Court of Criminal Appeals Rule 20. Said motion is hereby granted. |
Sumner | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Nathan Z. Vinson v. Kristin Denise Ball et al.
This is a child custody action involving two minor children. In 2010, the biological parents of the children entered into an agreed order, which provided that the mother would be the primary residential custodian with the father enjoying visitation rights. Thereafter, the mother sent the children to live with their maternal grandfather. In July 2014, the father filed a petition seeking to modify the prior custody order and establish a permanent parenting plan wherein he would be designated the primary residential parent. The mother opposed this change, and the maternal grandfather sought to intervene in the action for the purpose of seeking custody of the children. The trial court awarded primary custody to the maternal grandfather, determining that a risk of substantial harm would result if custody of the children were awarded to the father. The father has appealed. Determining that there is a lack of clear and convincing evidence to support the trial court's finding of a risk of substantial harm, we reverse the custody award to the grandfather. We remand this matter for a hearing regarding whether a material change in circumstance has occurred since the initial custody award and whether modifying the designation of primary residential parent from the mother to the father is in the children's best interest. We also remand this matter for the trial court to revisit the issue of changing the children's surnames. We affirm the trial court's denial of the grandfather's request for retroactive child support. |
Cumberland | Court of Appeals | |
In re Tamera W., et al.
Upon petition of the Tennessee Department of Children's Services (“the Department”), the trial court terminated the parental rights of Mother and Father. Among other things, the trial court concluded that Mother and Father had committed severe child abuse. The trial court also determined that the termination of parental rights was in the children's best interest. Having reviewed the record transmitted to us on appeal, we reverse the trial court's finding that Mother abandoned the children pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated section 36-1-102(1)(A)(iv). Moreover, we reverse the trial court's finding that Mother failed to substantially comply with the requirements of the family permanency plans created in this case. However, we conclude that clear and convincing evidence supports the other grounds for termination relied upon by the trial court, as well as the trial court's finding that the termination of Mother and Father's parental rights is in the children's best interest. |
Shelby | Court of Appeals | |
In Re: Maddox C.
This is a termination of parental rights case. Father/Appellant, who is incarcerated, appeals the termination of his parental rights to the minor child. The trial court terminated Father’s parental rights on two statutory grounds: (1) abandonment, and (2) incarceration for more than ten years, see Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 36-1-113(g)(1) and (6), and on its finding that termination of Father’s parental rights is in the child’s best interest. Discerning no error, we affirm and remand. |
Dickson | Court of Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Amanda L. Irwin
Amanda L. Irwin (“the Defendant”) pled guilty to driving under the influence and possession of an open container of an alcoholic beverage, reserving two certified questions of law challenging the trial court’s denial of a motion to suppress. On appeal, the Defendant asserts that the law enforcement officer lacked reasonable suspicion to ask her to step out of her car and perform field sobriety tests. After a review of the record and applicable law, we affirm the trial court’s denial of the motion to suppress. |
Coffee | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Dennis Cedric Woodard, Jr. v. State of Tennessee
The Petitioner, Dennis Cedric Woodard, Jr., appeals the Bedford County Circuit Court’s denial of his petitions for post-conviction relief and for a writ of error coram nobis from his first degree premeditated murder conviction and his resulting life sentence. The Petitioner contends that the court erred by denying (1) post-conviction relief and (2) coram nobis relief. We affirm the judgments of the post-conviction and coram nobis court. |
Bedford | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Randall T. Beaty
Defendant, Randall T. Beaty, was indicted for first degree felony murder and aggravated child abuse. After a jury trial, he was convicted of reckless homicide and aggravated assault, which were charged to the jury as lesser[-]included offenses. He received consecutive sentences of four years for Class D felony reckless homicide and six years for Class C felony aggravated assault, for an effective ten-year sentence to be served in the Department of Correction. On appeal, Defendant argued: (1) that the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions; (2) that the trial court erred by allowing Detective Bachman to testify in violation of the rule of sequestration; (3) that the trial court erred by excluding a proffer by Amber Peveler; (4) that the trial court erred in failing to merge his convictions on double jeopardy grounds; and (5) that the trial court erred by ordering consecutive sentencing. As to the alleged violation of the rule of sequestration, we held, pursuant to State v. Jordan, 325 S.W.3d 1, 40 (Tenn. 2010), that the State had the rightunder Tennessee Rule of Evidence 615 to designate an investigating officer as exempt from sequestration and the designated investigating officer can remain in the courtroom during the testimony of other witnesses. We further recognized, as a matter of plain error, that the jury’s verdict for aggravated assault failed to specify the mens rea with which the Defendant acted, and a majority of the panel concluded that the Defendant’s judgment of conviction for knowing aggravated assault, a Class C felony, should be modified to reflect a conviction for reckless aggravated assault, a Class D felony. We, therefore, modified the conviction in Count 2 to a Class D felony reckless aggravated assault and modified Defendant’s sentence in Count 2 to four years’ incarceration to be served consecutively to the four year sentence for reckless homicide. Finally, we concluded that the conviction for reckless aggravated assault did not merge with the conviction for reckless homicide and affirmed all other aspects of Defendant’s convictions. On October 19, 2016, the Tennessee Supreme Court granted Defendant’s application for permission to appeal and remanded the case to this court for reconsideration in light of the supreme court’s recent opinion in State v. Howard, No. E2014-01510-SC-R11-CD, __ S.W.3d __, 2016 WL 5933430 (Tenn. Oct. 12, 2016). Upon reconsideration in light of Howard, we conclude that Defendant’s conviction for reckless aggravated assault must merge with his conviction for reckless homicide. The judgments of the trial court are affirmed as modified, and the case is remanded for entry of amended judgments of conviction. |
Sumner | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Randall T. Beaty - Concurring in Part and Dissenting in Part
I respectfully dissent from that portion of the majority=s opinion which modifies a judgment to impose a conviction for a lesser included offense even though there is legally sufficient evidence to sustain the conviction for the greater offense. I concur in all other aspects of the majority’s opinion. |
Sumner | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Kelly Lynn Chandler
The defendant, Kelly Lynn Chandler, appeals the order of the trial court revoking her probation and imposing her original sentence of eleven months and twenty-nine days in confinement. Upon review of the record, we conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding that the defendant violated the terms of her probation. Accordingly, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed. |
Robertson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Franklin Dale Grayson, Jr.
On November 14, 2014, the Johnson County Grand Jury returned an indictment charging the defendant, Franklin Dale Grayson, Jr., with four drug-related offenses including, initiating a process to manufacture methamphetamine (Count 1), possession of a Schedule II controlled substance (methamphetamine) with intent to sell or deliver (Count 2), maintaining a dwelling for using or selling controlled substances (Count 3), and possession with intent to use drug paraphernalia (Count 4). Following trial, a jury found the defendant guilty as charged in Counts 1 and 4. They found the defendant guilty of the lesser-included offense of simple possession of a Schedule II controlled substance in Count 2 and not guilty of maintaining a dwelling for using or selling controlled substances in Count 3. The trial court imposed an effective thirteen-year sentence. On appeal, the defendant argues the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction for initiating a process to manufacture methamphetamine and that the prosecutor made two improper statements in his closing argument that constitute reversible error. After our review, we affirm the judgments of the trial court. |
Johnson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Primestar Fund 1 TRS, Inc. v. Clarence Arnold Riggs, et al.
Corporate plaintiff filed an action for possession of real property. An individual claiming to be a partner in a limited partnership with an ownership interest in the real property moved to intervene in the action. The trial court granted plaintiff possession of the real property. The individual appeals the judgment for possession. We conclude that, because he was not aggrieved by the adjudication, the individual lacks standing to appeal. Moreover, because he is not a licensed attorney, he may not represent the limited partnership in this action. |
Coffee | Court of Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Javonta Marquis Perkins
This is Defendant’s, Javonta Marquis Perkins, direct appeal from his conviction of evading arrest, a Class D felony. On appeal, he argues that the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction and that the trial court erred by giving a jury instruction on criminal responsibility. We affirm the judgment of the trial court. |
Davidson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee - Javonta Marquis Perkins - Concurring in part and dissenting in part
I agree with most of the conclusions set forth in the majority opinion. I write separately, however, to respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusion that Sergeant Sanderson qualified as an endangered third party, which elevated the evading arrest to a Class D felony. |
Davidson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Thomas L. Dowlen
A jury convicted the defendant, Thomas L. Dowlen, of first degree (premeditated) murder. On appeal, the defendant asserts that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict of guilt and that he is entitled to a new trial based on the prosecutor’s remarks during opening argument. After a thorough review of the record, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. |
Robertson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Luis Castanon
Luis Castanon, the Petitioner, appeals the summary denial of his Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 36.1 motion to correct an illegal sentence. Because the motion failed to state a colorable claim, we affirm the trial court’s summary denial of the motion. |
Davidson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
William Reynolds v. Cherry Lindamood, Warden
William Reynolds (“the Petitioner”) was indicted for sale of cocaine in an amount less than .5 grams in a school zone, a Class B felony. He entered a negotiated plea to sale of .5 grams or more of cocaine, a Class B felony, and was sentenced to twelve years’ incarceration as a career offender with release eligibility after service of 60% of the sentence. The Petitioner filed petition for writ of habeas corpus challenging his conviction which the habeas corpus court denied. On appeal, the Petitioner claims that his judgment of conviction is void because the indictment was insufficient to support his plea to an increased amount of cocaine and that the habeas corpus court erred in summarily dismissing his Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus. After a review of the record and applicable law, we affirm the judgment of the habeas corpus court. |
Wayne | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Thomas Whited
A jury convicted the defendant on nine counts of especially aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, one count of attempt to commit that offense, thirteen counts of observation without consent, and one count of attempt to commit that offense. The convictions arose out of the defendant’s hidden-camera videotaping of his twelve-year-old daughter and her teenage friend while they were in various stages of undress. The trial court sentenced the defendant to an effective sentence of twenty-two years. In a divided opinion, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his convictions and sentence. In determining that the hidden-camera videos constituted prohibited child pornography under the child sexual exploitation statutes, the Court of Criminal Appeals relied in part on the six specific factors set forth in United States v. Dost, 636 F. Supp. 828 (S.D. Cal. 1986), sometimes referred to as the “Dost factors.” The defendant now appeals his nine convictions for especially aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, and he also challenges his sentence. We hold that, under the three child sexual exploitation statutes, Tennessee Code Annotated sections 39-17-1003, -1004, and -1005 (2014), the content of the prohibited material is judged by the same standard, regardless of whether the accused produced it, distributed it, or merely possessed it. In assessing whether material is prohibited under these statutes, we reject the use of the Dost factors as a “test” or an analytical framework. The material at issue must be evaluated based on what is depicted, without reference to the defendant’s subjective intent, because the Tennessee statutes on the production of child pornography do not include the accused’s subjective intent or purpose of experiencing sexual arousal or gratification as an element of the offense. Assessing the surreptitious videos taken by the defendant in the instant case, we conclude that the videos do not depict a minor engaged in “sexual activity,” defined by statute as the lascivious exhibition of a minor’s private body areas. For this reason, the videos are insufficient to support the defendant’s convictions for especially aggravated child sexual exploitation. Accordingly, we reverse and dismiss the defendant’s convictions for especially aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor. In light of this holding, we remand to the trial court for resentencing based on the convictions that were not challenged on appeal. On remand, the State may, if it so chooses, retry the defendant on the lesser-included offense of attempt. |
Knox | Supreme Court |