APPELLATE COURT OPINIONS

Following a trial, a Hamilton County jury convicted the defendant of rape, and the trial court sentenced him to ten years imprisonment. In this appeal, the defendant alleges (1) the evidence was insufficient to sustain his conviction, and (2) his sentence was excessive. After a thorough review of the record, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The petitioner's first post-conviction petition was dismissed in 1996, the petitioner, apparently, having been released from custody before the hearing and not appearing at the hearing to testify. Back in custody, at some point, he filed in 2000 a motion to reopen his petition, which was denied. He then filed an untimely appeal from that dismissal and proceeded, on appeal, as if the motion had been granted and the issues were those raised in his 1996 petition. Based upon our review, we conclude that the appeal should be dismissed because it was untimely.

The defendant, Derrick Bryant, was convicted of first degree premeditated murder. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-202(a)(1). The jury sentenced him to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole.  In this appeal of right, the defendant asserts that the trial court erred by (1)  failing to suppress his confession; (2) denying his last requested continuance; (3) accepting transfer of the case from the juvenile court; and (4) excluding evidence of the victim's reputation for violence. The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

The defendant was indicted for robbery and convicted of misdemeanor theft, for which she was sentenced to eleven months and twenty-nine days, and payment of restitution, with the defendant to serve thirty percent of the sentence. She timely appealed, arguing that the entire sentence should have been probated. Based upon our review, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The defendant, Linda G. Robison, appeals from the revocation of her probation. She contends that her probation expired before the revocation warrant issued, thereby divesting the trial court of the power to revoke her probation. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The defendant pled guilty in the Blount County Circuit Court to four charges of theft and one charge of automobile burglary. The court sentenced him to an aggregate sentence of four years, with seven months in jail, and the balance to be served on intensive probation. In this appeal as of right, the defendant argues that the trial court imposed an excessive amount of incarceration. After careful review of the record, we affirm the defendant's sentence but remand for entry of a corrected judgment in No. C-12607.

The petitioner, Roshaun Colbert, appeals the trial court's denial of his petition for post-conviction relief, claiming that he received the ineffective assistance of counsel. He contends that he pled guilty because his attorney guaranteed him that he would be released from prison after serving only five years of his twenty-year effective sentence. We affirm the trial court's denial of the petition.

On July 18, 1997, the Defendant, Randall Lloyd Hill, was convicted of one count of incest. After a sentencing hearing, the trial court imposed a sentence of five years to be served in the Department of Correction. In this appeal as of right, the Defendant argues that (1) his incest conviction subjected him to double jeopardy, (2) he was convicted solely on uncorroborated accomplice testimony, (3) the trial court erred in allowing inappropriate opinion testimony from a child abuse investigator, and (4) the Defendant was prejudiced by the prosecutor's improper comments regarding the Defendant's decision not to testify. Because we conclude that the prosecutor improperly commented on the Defendant's election not to testify, we reverse the Defendant's conviction and remand the case for a new trial.

Plaintiffs action against First Tennessee Bank National Association (“Bank”) was held to be time-barred by the Trial Judge pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. §47-3-118. Plaintiffs have appealed to this Court.

The defendant, Carl F. Neer, pleaded guilty in the Anderson County Criminal Court to a fourth-offense possession of marijuana, a Schedule VI controlled substance, and attempted to appeal a certified question of law. Because we are constrained to conclude that he has not properly presented his certified question, we dismiss the appeal.

The defendant, John Blacksmith, appeals his Davidson County Criminal Court jury conviction of second-offense driving while under the influence of an intoxicant (DUI). He claims (1) that the evidence was insufficient to support the jury's conclusion that, while intoxicated, he was in physical control of an operable motor vehicle and (2) that the trial court erred in refusing to grant a mistrial when a state's witness introduced inadmissible evidence that besmirched the defendant's character. We discern no reversible error and affirm the trial court's judgment.