State of Tennessee v. Lonnie Payne
Lonnie Payne (“the Defendant”) was convicted of violating a protective order, aggravated assault, and aggravated criminal trespass. He received an effective sentence of five years plus eleven months and twenty-nine days in the county workhouse. The Defendant filed a petition seeking to suspend the remainder of his sentence. Following an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied the petition. The Defendant appeals, arguing that the trial court erred when it denied his request for a suspended sentence. Upon review, we affirm the trial court’s judgment pursuant to Rule 20 of the Rules of the Court of Criminal Appeals. |
Shelby | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Eddie Wayne Shelton
Eddie Wayne Shelton (“the Defendant”) pleaded guilty to two counts of sale of less than 0.5 grams of cocaine, one count of possession with the intent to sell 0.5 grams or more of cocaine, and two counts of sale of 0.5 grams or more of cocaine. Pursuant to the plea agreement, the Defendant was sentenced to an effective sentence of ten years to be served in community corrections. Upon the filing of a revocation warrant, the Defendant was taken into custody, and a probation revocation hearing was held. At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court revoked the Defendant’s probation and ordered him to serve the remainder of his sentence in confinement. The Defendant appeals the trial court’s ruling. We affirm the trial court’s judgment pursuant to Rule 20 of the Rules of the Court of Criminal Appeals. |
Dyer | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Joe Sissom v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc.
The employee alleged that he injured his right shoulder while working for the employer. The trial court found that the employee’s thoracic outlet syndrome stemmed from a congenital abnormality and not a work-related injury. The employee has appealed. We affirm the judgment of the trial court. |
Warren | Workers Compensation Panel | |
State of Tennessee v. Jeffery B. Johnson, Jr.
The defendant, JeffreyB. Johnson, Jr., was tried on two counts of first degree (premeditated) murder,and after a jury trial was found guilty of two counts of voluntary manslaughter,Class C felonies. The defendant was sentenced as a Range I, standard offender to five years on each count, with the sentences to be served consecutively, for an effective sentence of ten years. The defendant challenges the sentences imposed by the trial court, claiming error in the trial court’s application of certain enhancement factors, its failure to apply certain proffered mitigating factors, and its decision to order the defendant’s sentences to be served consecutively. Considering the State’s concession that the trial court’s application of two of the enhancement factors was error, the trial court’s failure to consider all of the evidence that was presented at trial during sentencing, and the state of the record before us, we conclude that this case should be remanded to the trial court for resentencing consistent with this opinion. |
Dickson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Rivera L. Peoples
Rivera Peoples (“the Defendant”) appeals his jury conviction for first degree felony murder. In his appeal, he asserts that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support his conviction. After a thorough review of the record and the applicable law, we affirm the Defendant’s conviction. |
Davidson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
City of Maryville, Tennessee v. Wallace Scott Langford
This appeal arises from a dispute over the constitutionality of City of Maryville (“Maryville”) ordinance 16-110 (“the Ordinance”). The ordinance requires the issuance of a permit for certain public meetings and parades in Maryville. Wallace Scott Langford (“Langford”) and two associates engaged in street preaching at a Maryville intersection. Langford declined to apply for a permit and was cited for violating the ordinance. After a default judgment was rendered against him in municipal court, Langford appealed to the Circuit Court for Blount County (“the Trial Court”). Langford challenged the constitutionality of the Ordinance on grounds that it is overly broad and vague. Following a hearing, the Trial Court entered an order upholding the constitutionality of the Ordinance. Langford appeals. We hold that the Ordinance is unconstitutional on its face as it is vague, overly broad, and affords too much discretion to the officials charged with issuing permits. We reverse the judgment of the Trial Court. |
Blount | Court of Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Jerry L. Crawford Jr.
A Crockett County Grand Jury indicted appellant, Jerry L. Crawford, Jr., for one count of statutory rape and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. A jury found him guilty of both counts, and the trial court sentenced him to consecutive sentences of four years for statutory rape and eleven months, twenty-nine days for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Appellant raises the following issues on appeal: (1) whether the State’s evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant engaged in sexual intercourse with the victim “knowing” that she was under the legal age of consent; and (2) whether appellant possessed knowledge of the victim’s age simultaneously with the intent to engage in intercourse with her. Discerning no error, we affirm the judgments of the trial court. |
Crockett | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Harvey Brian Cochran
A jury convicted the Defendant-Appellant, Harvey Brian Cochran, of reckless homicide, a Class D felony. The trial court sentenced him as a Range I, standard offender to serve three years in the Tennessee Department of Correction. On appeal, Cochran argues that the trial court erred at sentencing by allowing the State to introduce unreliable hearsay as proof of a prior conviction for enhancement purposes, by failing to consider the relevant mitigating factors, and by denying him an alternative sentence. Upon review we reverse the trial court’s denial of an alternative sentence and order Cochran to serve a sentence of split confinement, with ninety days to be served in periodic confinement at the county jail and the remainder of his three-year sentence to be served on supervised probation with the terms of his probation and periodic confinement to be determined by the trial court. In all other respects, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed. |
Monroe | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
In Re: Estate of Jack B. Hill, Jane Ann Steffey, Executrix
This appeal involves a dispute over the decedent's Codicil to his Will. The Codicil divided decedent's real property between decedent's daughter and Jeff W. Powell. When decedent was on his death bed he asked a lawyer to prepare the Codicil, which described where certain property lines between the parties would be drawn, and the Codicil essentially gave 45 acres to decedent's daughter and 55 acres to Powell. During the administration of the Estate, the parties employed a surveyor to survey the property lines for the purpose of preparing the respective deeds. The surveyor determined that the description of the boundaries in the Codicil gave Powell 80 plus acres and the decedent's daughter 19 plus acres. Essentially, the Trial Court held that the descriptions created patent ambiguities, but he also concluded that even if the ambiguities were latent, extensive governance would be required to validate the Codicil, which is not appropriate. Accordingly, he voided the Codicil altogether. Powell has appealed. We reverse the Trial Court and hold that the decedent's intent was to give his daughter 45 acres and Powell 55 acres, and we reinstate the Codicil with directions to the Trial Court to direct the surveyor to reconfigure the boundaries to carry out the intent of the testator. |
Loudon | Court of Appeals | |
John R. Green v. State of Tennessee
The Petitioner-Appellant, John R. Green, appeals the post-conviction court’s denial of his second petition for post-conviction relief, which the court treated as a motion to reopen his first petition for post-conviction relief. On appeal, the petitioner does not address any of the procedural issues for which the post-conviction court denied the second petition. He instead argues, as he did in his first petition for post-conviction relief, that he received the ineffective assistance of trial counsel based on a failure to communicate a plea offer and to present a defense at trial. Upon review, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court. |
Shelby | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Komoyangi Komoyangi
A Shelby County jury convicted the Defendant-Appellant, Komoyangi Komoyangi, of assault, a Class A misdemeanor, and he was sentenced to serve eleven months and twenty nine days in confinement. The sole issue presented for our review is whether the evidence was sufficient to support the conviction given Komoyangi’s theory of self-defense. Upon review, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. |
Shelby | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Jeremy Antwan Bryant
Appellant, Jeremy Antwan Bryant, pled guilty to possession of one-half gram or more of cocaine with intent to sell, a Class B felony. The trial court sentenced appellant to eight years but suspended the sentence and placed appellant on supervised probation. After appellant had been on probation for almost three years, the trial court revoked his probation. On appeal, appellant contends that the trial court erred in revoking his probation because the State did not establish, by a preponderance of the evidence, that appellant committed new criminal offenses while on probation. Finding no error, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. |
Davidson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Sonny Coulter
On January 10, 2002, the defendant, Sonny Coulter, pled guilty to one count of rape, and the trial court sentenced him to eight years, to be served at 100%. The trial court entered a corrected judgment in 2008 in which it set forth the defendant’s supervision for life requirements. In 2011, the defendant filed a motion to “quash” the modified sentence, alleging that he had not been advised of the supervision for life requirement when he pled guilty. The trial court treated the motion as a petition for post-conviction relief that alleged that the defendant did not knowingly and voluntarily enter his guilty plea. It then summarily dismissed the petition after a hearing. On appeal, the defendant contends that the trial court erred on multiple grounds when it denied his motion, each of which is discussed below. After a thorough review of the record and applicable authorities, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. |
Davidson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. James Michael England
The defendant, James Michael England, appeals the Dickson County Circuit Court’s revocation of his community corrections sentence. The trial court held a hearing on March 30, 2011, during which the defendant acknowledged his absence from his house during the home visits and his failure to report to the community corrections office. The court found the defendant in violation of his sentence to community corrections and ordered him to serve his remaining sentence in confinement. The defendant contends that the trial court abused its discretion because the defendant was in substantial compliance with the terms of his community corrections program. Because we find that the trial court did not abuse its discretion, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed. |
Dickson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Darnell Horton
The defendant appeals the denial of his application for pretrial diversion, asserting that the prosecutor abused his discretion and that the trial court erred in affirming the prosecutor’s denial. The State concedes that the prosecutor failed to assign weight to the relevant factors in reaching the decision to denypretrial diversion. We reverse the judgment of the trial court and remand for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion. |
Rutherford | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Robert Scribner, II v. State of Tennessee
The petitioner, Robert Scribner,II, appeals the denialof his petition for post-conviction relief from his rape of a child conviction, arguing that his trial counsel was ineffective for not hiring an independent expert to challenge DNA evidence that linked him to the crime. Following our review, we affirm the denial of the petition. |
Davidson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Laurie Jo Edwards v. Gary Wayne Edwards
Wife was granted divorce on the grounds of Husband’s inappropriate marital conduct. The trial court distributed the marital property and awarded Wife transitory alimony for four years. Wife appealed, arguing she should have been awarded a larger portion of the marital estate and was entitled to alimony in futuro. She also argued she should have been awarded her attorneys’ fees. We affirm the trial court’s judgment in all respects. The trial court equitably distributed the marital assets and did not abuse its discretion in awarding Wife transitional alimony to help her adjust to living as a single person again. |
Rutherford | Court of Appeals | |
Jeffrey R. Smith, et al. v. Richard Garvin and Serena Garvin
Homeowners in a subdivision used water from a sulfur well to water their lawn. Neighbors complained about the noxious odor, and when the Homeowners continued to use the sulfurous water, the neighbors sought and obtained an order permanently enjoining them from using their well for irrigation purposes. Three years later the Homeowners began using the sulfur well to water their lawn again, and the neighbors filed a petition seeking to hold the Homeowners in contempt for violating the court’s order. The Homeowners filed a retaliatory complaint against the neighbors, and the neighbors sought Rule 11 sanctions for having to defend that action. The trial court consolidated the hearing of the two motions, and following a hearing where testimony and documentary evidence were introduced, the court found the Homeowners had willfully violated the court’s order on at least nine occasions. The court also found the Homeowners’ action was filed in violation of Rule 11 and fined the Homeowners $1,000. The Homeowners appealed,claiming the two motions should not have been heard together and that the evidence did not support the court’s finding of willfulness beyond a reasonable doubt. We conclude the court did not abuse its discretion in hearing the two motions in the same proceeding, and that the evidence was not insufficient for the court to have found the Homeowners guilty of willfully violating its earlier order beyond a reasonable doubt. We thus affirm the trial court’s judgment. |
Rutherford | Court of Appeals | |
Lynn Rogers v. Jon Roach, et al.
Landowner owns property that was once part of a single parcel of land. The only way she can access her property is over a gravel roadway approximately nine feet wide that crosses through her neighbors’ property. One of Landowner’s neighbors erected fence posts near the roadway that Landowner alleges interfere with her ability to pull her horse trailers back and forth to her property. Landowner filed a complaint alleging she has the right to a forty foot easement across her neighbors’ property. After Landowner presented her proof at trial, Defendant neighbors moved for involuntary dismissal pursuant to Tenn. R. Civ. P. 41.02. The trial court dismissed Landowner’s complaint. We reverse the dismissal as to the Landowner’s claim for interference with her use and enjoyment of the easement because she presented evidence to establish the elements of that claim. We also reverse the dismissal of the claim for damages resulting from the interference. Dismissal of the other claims by Landowner is affirmed. We remand this case for further proceedings. |
Fentress | Court of Appeals | |
James Johnson and wife, Elaine Johnson v. The Torrington Company, et al.
The plaintiff was severely injured while working on the premises of his employer. Because the employer was immune from liability in tort under the Workers’ Compensation statutes, the employee’s negligence suit named as defendants two other companies whose equipment was implicated in his injury. After a five-day trial, the jury found that the employer was solely at fault for the plaintiff’s injuries, resulting in no award. The plaintiff then filed a motion for new trial. The trial court granted the motion ten months after it was filed, declaring that in his capacity as the thirteenth juror he had found the verdict to be against the weight of the evidence. The case was tried before a second jury, which reached a different verdict, finding that one of the defendant companies was 90% at fault for the plaintiff’s injury while the plaintiff himself was 10% at fault. The net verdict for the plaintiff amounted to $2,925,000. The defendant company argues on appeal that the trial court erred in vacating the first jury verdict, that the second jury verdict was “contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence,” and that the amount of the verdict was excessive. We affirm the jury verdict and the judgment based on it. |
Giles | Court of Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Timothy Damon Carter
The Defendant, Timothy Damon Carter, pled guilty to two counts of aggravated burglary, a Class C felony, and three counts of theft of property valued at $1,000 or more but less than $10,000, a Class D felony. See Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 39-14-103, -105(3), -403. The trial court sentenced the Defendant as a Range III, persistent offender to an effective eight-year sentence to be served in confinement. In this appeal as of right, the Defendant contends (1) that the trial court erred by denying his motion to withdraw his guilty plea; and (2) that the trial court erred by ordering his sentence to be served in confinement. Following our review, we affirm the judgments of the trial court. |
Davidson | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
Juan Cantu v. State of Tennessee
In June of 2008, petitioner, Juan Cantu, entered a guilty plea to conspiracy to sell more than twenty-nine grams of cocaine.The trial court suspended petitioner’s sentence and placed him on probation for ten years. Agents from the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) detained petitioner at his home on May 17, 2011, before transferring him to a detention facility in Louisiana. Petitioner filed a petition for post-conviction relief on September 30, 2011, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel for trial counsel’s failure to advise him that pleading guilty would result in deportation. On the State’s motion, the post-conviction court dismissed the petition based on the one-year statute of limitations set forth in Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-30-102(a). In summarily dismissing the petition, the post-conviction court determined that the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Padilla v. Kentucky, — U.S. —, 130 S. Ct. 1473 (2010), was inapplicable to petitioner’s case, and as such, the petition was untimely filed. To overcome the statute of limitations, petitioner argues on appeal that Padilla should be applied retroactively. Discerning no error, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court. |
Putnam | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Jamaal Eddie
After a jury trial, the defendant, Jamaal Eddie, was convicted of aggravated child abuse and of first degree murder committed in the perpetration of aggravated child abuse. He is serving an effective life sentence. The defendant appeals, contending that the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict of first degree felony murder, that photographs of the victim were admitted into evidence in error, and that the defendant’s confession was admitted in error because it was not given voluntarily. We conclude that the evidence is sufficient to uphold the verdict and that there was no error in the admission of the photographs or the defendant’s statement. Accordingly, we affirm the judgments of the trial court. |
Shelby | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. O'Neal Johnson
Following a jury trial, the defendant was convicted of attempted second degree murder, a Class B felony. He was sentenced to serve twenty years in prison as a Range II multiple offender. The defendant appeals the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction for second degree murder, based primarily on his contention that the evidence is not sufficient to show that he acted knowingly or without adequately provoked passion. We conclude that the evidence is sufficient to support the conviction and affirm the judgment of the trial court. |
Shelby | Court of Criminal Appeals | |
State of Tennessee v. Paul Richardson
A jury convicted the defendant, Paul Richardson, of aggravated robbery, a Class B felony, aggravated burglary, a Class C felony, aggravated assault, a Class C felony, and unlawful possession of a handgun by a convicted felon, a Class E felony. The trial court imposed consecutive sentences for the aggravated robbery and aggravated assault convictions; the aggravated burglary and felon in possession of a handgun convictions were to run concurrently with all other counts, for an effective sentence of thirty-nine years. On appeal, this Court overturned the aggravated assault conviction, and remanded to allow the trial court to restructure the service of the remaining sentences to include consecutive sentencing. On remand, the trial court imposed consecutive sentences for all three remaining convictions, for an effective sentence of forty-one years. The defendant appeals the imposition of consecutive sentences. After a careful review of the record, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. |
Shelby | Court of Criminal Appeals |