APPELLATE COURT OPINIONS

A Cocke County jury found the Defendant guilty of theft of property valued over $500 and of burglary of a motor vehicle. The trial court sentenced the Defendant as a Range II offender to three years for each conviction and ordered that the sentences run concurrently to each other but consecutively to prior sentences in Jefferson County. The Defendant now appeals, arguing that insufficient evidence was presented to convict the Defendant of theft and burglary. Finding no error, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

The defendant appeals his convictions of first degree premeditated murder and first degree felony murder. The defendant argues that the State did not present sufficient evidence at trial to support his convictions. We disagree. The defendant also argues the trial court erred in not charging the jury on second degree murder and voluntary manslaughter as lesser-included offenses of felony murder. We agree but conclude the error was harmless and affirm the judgments of the trial court.

Defendant, Matthew Melton Jackson, appeals the sentence imposed upon him by the trial court following his guilty plea to aggravated kidnapping, aggravated robbery, theft of property over $500.00 and two counts of aggravated rape. We affirm the judgments of the trial court.

The defendants, Clarence Carnell Gaston, Miqwon Deon Leach, and Mario Deangalo Thomas, were convicted by an Obion County Circuit Court jury of conspiracy to commit second degree murder, second degree murder, and first degree felony murder. Finding aggravating circumstances (3) and (7) applicable to both Leach and Thomas, and aggravating circumstances (2), (3), and (7) applicable to Gaston, the jury sentenced each defendant to life without the possibility of parole for the first degree murder convictions. The trial court merged the second degree murder convictions into the convictions for felony murder and sentenced the defendants to eight years for the conspiracy convictions, to be served concurrently to their life sentences without possibility of parole. All three defendants challenge the sufficiency of the convicting evidence. Leach and Thomas each raise issues regarding the appropriateness of their life sentences without parole, and Thomas raises two additional issues of whether his trial should have been severed, and whether the verdicts of first degree felony murder and conspiracy to commit second degree murder are impermissibly inconsistent. After a thorough review of the record and of applicable law, we affirm the judgments of conviction and the sentences imposed. However, we remand to the trial court for entry of a corrected judgment form for Gaston's conspiracy conviction to reflect that he was found guilty by a jury.

The mother of a fourteen year old male child appeals the action of the trial judge in denying her Petition for a change of custody. The trial court found that no material change of circumstances had been established by the evidence that would justify change of custody. We affirm the action of the trial court.

We granted this appeal to determine whether a trial court's entry of an order of correction filed after the entry of the final judgment satisfied the requirements for the defendant to appeal a certified question of law pursuant to Rule 37(b)(2) of the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that neither the order nor the final judgment met the requirements for appealing a certified question of law set forth in State v. Preston, 759 S.W.2d 647 (Tenn. 1988), and dismissed the appeal. After reviewing the record, we conclude that the trial court's order of correction under Rule 36 of the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure was entered while the trial court had jurisdiction before the filing of a notice of appeal and therefore complied with the prerequisites for raising a certified question of law on appeal under the circumstances of this case. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment and remand for the Court of Criminal Appeals to address the merits of the appeal.

The petitioner, Richard Lynn Norton, appeals from the trial court's denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. The single issue presented for review is whether the petitioner was denied the effective assistance of counsel at trial. The judgment is affirmed.

The defendant, Jessie Jones, appeals as of right his conviction by a Shelby County jury of attempted second degree murder, a Class B felony. The trial court sentenced him as a Range II, multiple offender to twenty years in the Department of Correction. The defendant contends (1) that the trial court should have instructed the jury on self-defense and (2) that attempted second degree murder is not an offense in Tennessee. Although we hold that attempted second degree murder is an offense, we reverse the conviction because the failure to instruct on self-defense is plain error. We remand the case to the trial court for a new trial.

Appellants, state employees, were subjects of a Reduction In Force ("RIF") and appeal the order of the chancery court dismissing their petition for review of the Commissioner of Personnel's decision that their respective positions were correctly resolved in the RIF.