Yovonda S. Chambers v. State of Tennessee
The Petitioner, Yovonda S. Chambers, pled guilty to one count of identity theft and agreed to allow the trial court to determine sentencing. Pursuant to the plea agreement, the State entered a nolle prosequi as to a second count of identity theft. After a sentencing hearing, the trial court sentenced the Petitioner to four years to be served on intensive probation. The Petitioner timely filed a petition seeking post-conviction relief on the basis of ineffective assistance of counsel, which the post-conviction court denied after a hearing. The Petitioner appeals the post-conviction court’s denial, claiming that her attorney failed to adequately investigate the case, discuss the case with the Petitioner, and properly prepare for sentencing. After a thorough review of the record, the briefs, and relevant authorities, we affirm the post-conviction court’s judgment. |
Williamson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Julia Young, on behalf of the estate of Cecil C. Young v. Lisa Kennedy, M.D. and Methodist Health Systems, Inc.
This case involves the application of the medical malpractice statute of limitations. The trial court granted summary judgment to the defendant doctor, finding that the statute of limitations defense was not waived by her failure to raise it in her first pre-answer motion, that the defense was sufficiently pleaded, and that the undisputed facts in the record supported a finding that the statute of limitations had expired at the time of filing the initial complaint. Affirmed and remanded. |
Shelby | Court of Appeals | |
Jim Hammond, Sheriff of Hamilton County et al. v. Chris Harvey et al.
The issue presented in this case is whether a county civil service board was authorized to order the county sheriff to equalize the pay of all sergeants employed within the sheriff’s office. A group of sergeants, who were paid varying amounts within an established pay range, filed a grievance regarding pay disparities among sergeants in the sheriff’s office. When the sheriff rejected the grievance, the sergeants filed a grievance with the sheriff’s department civil service board. The board upheld the grievance and ordered the sheriff to equalize the pay of all sergeants in the sheriff’s office. The sheriff and the county appealed to the Hamilton County Chancery Court, which held that the board did not have the authority to order pay equalization and declared the board’s ruling null and void. The Court of Appeals ruled that the board exceeded its statutory authority, but remanded the case to the board so it could direct the sheriff to take the necessary steps to eliminate the pay disparity. Pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 8-8-409(3) (2011), we hold that the board had the authority to hear the grievance, but in the absence of proof that the sheriff violated state law or the sheriff’s department civil service manual, the board lacked the power to order the remedy of salary equalization. There was no proof that the sheriff violated state law, and the civil service manual specifically gave the sheriff the authority to make individual pay determinations. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Chancery Court for further proceedings as are necessary. |
Hamilton | Supreme Court | |
State of Tennessee v. Michael Dewey Ellington
The appellant, Michael Dewey Ellington, was convicted of the first degree premeditated murder of his girlfriend, Julia Kinsey, and was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Tennessee Department of Correction. On appeal, the appellant contends that the evidence is not sufficient to support a conviction of first degree premeditated murder, that the trial court erred in excluding photographs depicting the contents of the victim’s purse, and that the trial court erred by admitting a photograph depicting the victim’s wounds. Upon review, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. |
Monroe | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Michael Dewey Ellington - Dissenting
I respectfully disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the evidence supports the verdict of first degree murder. In my view, the element of premeditation was not established beyond a reasonable doubt. |
Monroe | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Armethia D. Lively ex rel. Robert E. Lively v. Union Carbide Corporation
Upon the death of her husband from asbestos-related pulmonary disease, the plaintiff filed suit for workers' compensation benefits. Because her husband had previously settled a disability claim for 400 weeks of benefits, the employer denied the claim. The trial court awarded the funeral expenses of the husband but declined to grant benefits to the plaintiff as his dependent over and above the amount of the settlement. Her appeal has been referred to the Special Workers' Compensation Appeals Panel for a hearing and a report of findings of fact and conclusions of law pursuant to Tennessee Supreme Court Rufe 51. Although the plaintiff may make a separate claim for benefits, she is not entitled to any recovery beyond funeral expenses because the amount of her entitlement, as controlled by the date of her husband's injury, would not be in excess of the amount of his settlement. The judgment is, therefore, affirmed. |
Anderson | Workers Compensation Panel | |
State of Tennessee v. Charles King Morris a/k/a Carl Adam Jackson
Charles King Morris (“the Defendant”) pleaded guilty to one count of theft over $1000 and, pursuant to his plea, was sentenced as a Range I, standard offender to a three-year sentence suspended to supervised probation. After the Defendant was arrested again for theft of property, his probation officer filed a probation violation report. The trial court subsequently held an evidentiary hearing, revoked the Defendant’s probation, and ordered the Defendant to serve the remainder of his original sentence in confinement. The Defendant appeals the trial court’s ruling. After a thorough review of the record and the applicable law, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. |
Hamilton | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Tyris Lemont Harvey
The defendant, Tyris Lemont Harvey, appeals the sentencing decision of the Blount County Circuit Court following the revocation of his probationary sentence. The defendant pled guilty in multiple cases, over a period of years, and was serving an effective eleven-year sentence on supervised probation. A violation report was filed, and, following a hearing, the trial court revoked the defendant’s probation and ordered that the balance of the original sentences be served in confinement. On appeal, the defendant does not contest the trial court’s revocation, but argues that the court erred in ordering him to serve the balance of his sentence in confinement. After review, we conclude no error occurred and affirm the decision of the trial court. |
Blount | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Terrance Antonio Cecil
The defendant was convicted of false imprisonment and assault. The trial court imposed concurrent sentences of six months, with all but sixty days suspended to probation. More than one year after the trial but while the defendant’s case was pending in the Court of Criminal Appeals, this Court filed its opinion in State v. White, 362 S.W.3d 559 (Tenn. 2012), which requires, on grounds of due process, trial courts to provide a more specific instruction on kidnapping charges as to whether the removal or confinement of a victim is essentially incidental to any accompanying offense. The Court of Criminal Appeals held in this instance that, although the White instruction was not provided at trial, the jury was correctly instructed and the evidence was sufficient to support both convictions. We granted review to determine whether the absence of the White instruction warrants a new trial. Because the omission of the instruction required by White cannot be classified as harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, the conviction for false imprisonment is reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial. |
Maury | Supreme Court | |
State of Tennessee v. Dewayne Collier a/k/a Patrick Collier
A Shelby County jury convicted the defendant of aggravated statutory rape, and the trial court imposed a sentence of four years. On appeal, the defendant, who was forty-two years old at the time of the offense, argued that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction because the testimony of the fourteen-year-old female victim, a consenting accomplice in the crime, was not adequately corroborated by other proof. The Court of Criminal Appeals found that the victim qualified as an accomplice to the crime but affirmed the conviction, holding that her testimony was sufficiently corroborated by the evidence in the record. This Court granted review to determine whether a victim of statutory rape qualifies as an accomplice such that his or her testimony must be corroborated in order to support a conviction. We hold that the testimony of a victim of statutory rape does not require corroboration. Because the evidence is sufficient to sustain the conviction, the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals is affirmed. |
Shelby | Supreme Court | |
State of Tennessee v. Don Maurice Taylor
The appellant, Don Maurice Taylor, pled guilty in the Gibson County Circuit Court to one count of second degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault. After a sentencing hearing, the trial court sentenced him to concurrent sentences of twenty-five years for the murder conviction, a Class A felony, and six years for each aggravated robbery conviction, a Class C felony. On appeal, the Petitioner contends that his effective twenty-five-year sentence is excessive because the trial court misapplied enhancement factors and failed to apply certain mitigating factors. Based upon the oral arguments, the record, and the parties’ briefs, we affirm the judgments of the trial court. |
Gibson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
William H. Thomas, Jr. v. Tennessee Department of Transportation
This appeal arises from a petition for judicial review of the decision of the Tennessee Department of Transportation to deny the petitioner’s application for four billboard construction permits on I-240 in Memphis, Shelby County, Tennessee. The dispositive issues concern the zoning classifications of the proposed billboard locations. The Department of Transportation denied the permits based upon the finding that none of the proposed billboard locations met the zoning requirements in Tennessee Code Annotated § 54-21-103(4) or Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 1680-2-3-.03(1)(a)1, or the definitions for “Zoned Commercial” or “Zoned Industrial” in Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs.1680-2-3-.02(29). The trial court affirmed the Department’s denial of the permits, finding subsection (d) of 23 C.F.R. § 750.708, which states, “A zone in which limited commercial or industrial activities are permitted as an incident to other primary land uses is not considered to be a commercial or industrial zone for outdoor advertising control purposes” was controlling. The trial court also found the area was comprehensively zoned for residential, agricultural and flood plain uses, not commercial or industrial, and that “TDOT acted within its statutory authority in denying the petitioner’s application for permits,” and thus the court dismissed the petition. We affirm the decision to deny the permits based upon federal and state law. |
Davidson | Court of Appeals | |
Larry D. Williams v. City of Burns, Tennessee
A police officer who was terminated for violating chain of command and insubordination filed suit for retaliatory discharge pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-1-304, alleging that he had been terminated for reporting illegal activities of the Police Chief to the Mayor. Following a trial, the court held that the evidence did not establish that the officer had been terminated solely for his refusal to remain silent about the illegal activities. Finding that the reasons given for the officer’s termination were pretextual within the meaning of the applicable statute, we reverse the judgment of the trial court and remand for further proceedings. |
Dickson | Court of Appeals | |
AOL, Inc. (Successor to America Online, Inc.), on its Own Behalf and as Assignee of Sprint Communications Company, L. P., and Sprint Communications Company, L. P. v. Richard H. Roberts, in his Capacity as Commissioner of Revenue for the State of Tennesse
Taxpayers appeal from the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the Commissioner and dismissal of the taxpayers’ claims for refund of sales taxes paid to the State of Tennessee. Holding that the service at issue was not excluded from the definition of taxable telecommunications as a private line service or as an enhanced service, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. |
Davidson | Court of Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Keith C. Buckalew
The defendant, Keith C. Buckalew, was convicted by a Sumner County Criminal Court jury of solicitation of a minor to observe sexual conduct, a Class E felony, and assault, a Class B misdemeanor, and was sentenced to respective terms of four years and six months, to be served consecutively. On appeal, the defendant argues that: (1) the trial court erred in allowing the hearsay testimony of two minors under the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule; (2) the trial court erred in failing to limit, in the second trial, the victim’s testimony about the defendant’s touching her breast; and (3) the trial court erred in failing to limit testimony of the State’s witnesses regarding the defendant’s consumption of alcohol. We conclude that the defendant has waived review of these claims and, accordingly, affirm the judgments of the trial court. |
Sumner | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Shawn Anthony Jones
A Green County Criminal Court Jury convicted the appellant, Shawn Anthony Jones, of one count of first degree premeditated murder, three counts of first degree felony murder, and one count of attempted first degree premeditated murder. The trial court merged the murder convictions and sentenced the appellant to life. After a sentencing hearing, the trial court sentenced the appellant to twenty-five years for the attempted murder conviction and ordered that he serve the sentence consecutively to the life sentence. On appeal, the appellant contends that the trial court erred by (1) allowing the State to introduce into evidence unduly prejudicial photographs of the victims, (2) failing to suppress his statements to police, (3) refusing to allow him to show that a co-defendant told police she kicked open the door to the victims’ home, and (4) failing to grant his motion for a mistrial when the prosecutor commented on his failure to testify. Based upon the record and the parties’ briefs, we affirm the judgments of the trial court. |
Greene | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
William Ned McCoy, et al. v. Richard Lee Bales, et al.
William Ned McCoy and Carolyn McCoy (“Plaintiffs”) sued Richard Lee Bales and Shelia M. Bales (“Defendants”) alleging, in part, that Defendants had encroached upon real property owned by Plaintiffs, and seeking, in part, a determination with regard to a boundary line. The case was tried before a jury, and the Trial Court entered judgment upon the jury’s verdict finding and holding, inter alia, that the property is owned by the parties as set out in the Dennis Fultz survey dated February 29, 1996. Plaintiffs appeal to this Court raising an issue regarding whether the evidence supports the jury’s verdict. We hold that material evidence supports the jury’s verdict, and we affirm. |
Hancock | Court of Appeals | |
H. Owen Maddux v. Board of Professional Responsibility of the Supreme Court of Tennessee
This direct appeal involves a disciplinary proceeding against a Chattanooga lawyer arising out of his representation of two clients. With one member dissenting, a hearing panel of the Board of Professional Responsibility determined that the lawyer should be suspended from the practice of law for nine months. The lawyer appealed to the Chancery Court for Hamilton County, and the trial court upheld the nine-month suspension, concluding that the evidence supported the finding of the hearing panel’s majority that the lawyer’s misconduct caused potential injury to one of his clients. In this appeal, the lawyer argues that (1) the hearing panel erred by refusing to set aside the default judgment entered against him based on his failure to respond to the petition for discipline; (2) the record contains no evidence of potential injury resulting from his misconduct; and (3) the hearing panel ascribed too much weight to his prior history of discipline when considering aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Based on our review of the record, we, like the trial court, affirm the hearing panel’s decision to suspend the lawyer’s license to practice law for nine months. |
Hamilton | Supreme Court | |
Richard Herrera v. State of Tennessee
The Petitioner, Richard Herrera, appeals the Obion County Circuit Court’s summary dismissal of his petition for post-conviction relief from his 2010 convictions for sexual battery and attempted sexual battery and his effective Range I, one-year sentence. The Petitioner contends that the trial court erred by dismissing his petition on the ground that his sentence had expired. Because the trial court erred in dismissing the post-conviction petition on the ground of an expired sentence, we reverse the judgment of the trial court and remand the case for an evidentiary hearing. |
Obion | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Terrance Lewis
Terrance Lewis (“the Defendant”) was convicted by a jury of one count of second degree murder, two counts of attempted second degree murder, and three counts of attempted voluntary manslaughter. Following a sentencing hearing, the trial court imposed an effective sentence of ninety-five years. In this appeal, the Defendant contends that the evidence is not sufficient to support his convictions and that the trial court erred in sentencing him. After a thorough review of the record and the applicable law, we affirm the judgments of the trial court. |
Shelby | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Terrance Lewis - Concurring
I write separately to address the current split of authority on the standard to be applied to appellate review of consecutive sentencing. The majority determines that the abuse of discretion standard with a presumption of reasonableness is the applicable standard. However, as noted by the majority, the standard of review on the issue of consecutive sentencing is not clear under our state’s current jurisprudence. In the arena of consecutive sentencing, our supreme court has not issued a definitive ruling on the standard of review to be applied by this court. |
Shelby | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Stephen Brian Wilcox
Stephen Brian Wilcox (“the Defendant”) was convicted by a jury of attempted aggravated sexual battery. Following a sentencing hearing, the trial court sentenced the Defendant to six years’ incarceration. In this appeal, the Defendant contends that the evidence is not sufficient to support his conviction and that the trial court erred in sentencing him. The Defendant also argues that the trial court erred in excluding testimony related to alleged sexual accusations made by the victim against others, in permitting the victim to be brought into the courtroom to be identified, and in permitting the State to continue its direct examination of the victim’s mother after it passed the witness. After a thorough review of the record and the applicable law, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. |
Madison | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Craig C. Marten v. Mountain States Health Alliance, et al.
The final judgment from which the appellant seeks to appeal was entered on January 7, 2013. The only Notice of Appeal “filed” by the appellant on February 7, 2013, was submitted to the trial court clerk via facsimile transmission in violation of Rule 5A.02(4)(e) of the Rules of Civil Procedure. Because the Notice of Appeal was insufficient to invoke the jurisdiction of this Court, this appeal is dismissed. |
Washington | Court of Appeals | |
Anthony D. Forster v. State of Tennessee
Anthony D. Forster (“the Petitioner”) filed a petition for post-conviction relief from his conviction for especially aggravated robbery. In his petition, he alleged that he received ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. The post-conviction court summarily dismissed his petition. On appeal, the Petitioner asserts that the post-conviction court erred in summarily dismissing his petition. Upon our thorough review of the record and applicable law, we reverse the judgment of the post-conviction court and remand this matter to the Davidson County Criminal Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. |
Davidson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Randall Coleman
A Davidson County jury found the Defendant, Randall Coleman, guilty of five counts of aggravated sexual battery and one count of rape of a child. The trial court sentenced the Defendant to ten years for each aggravated sexual battery conviction and to the mandatory twenty-five-year sentence for the rape of a child conviction. The trial court ordered partial consecutive sentencing for a total effective sentence of fifty-five years in the Tennessee Department of Correction. On appeal, the Defendant contends: (1) the evidence is insufficient to sustain his convictions; and (2) the trial court erred when sentencing him because his sentence is excessive. After a thorough review of the record and applicable authorities, we conclude there exists no error in the judgments of the trial court. Accordingly, the judgments of the trial court are affirmed. |
Davidson | Court of Criminal Appeals |