APPELLATE COURT OPINIONS

The defendant, Shannon Alan Griffin, was charged with two counts of attempted first degree murder, two counts of aggravated assault involving use of a deadly weapon, and two counts of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury after twice hitting his landlord with his car. The jury found the defendant guilty of all four counts of aggravated assault but could not reach a verdict on the two counts of attempted first degree murder. The trial court merged the four aggravated assault counts into two convictions and, as to the attempted first degree murder counts, declared a mistrial and ordered a new trial. Pursuant to Tennessee Rule of Appellate Procedure 10, the defendant appeals from the trial court’s decision, arguing that he may not be retried on the attempted first degree murder counts because there did not exist manifest necessity for a mistrial and a retrial would violate the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Following our review, we affirm the trial court.

Plaintiffs brought this declaratory judgment action, asking the Court to declare that building restrictions on platted parcels of property from a common grantor applied to a non-platted parcel purchased by defendants from a subsequent grantor. 

The Trial Court, responding to a summary judgment motion, made detailed findings of facts, and concluded that the “subject to” language in the deeds was ambiguous and construed the language against the inclusion of restrictions on any portion of the property that lay outside the platted subdivisions. Plaintiffs have appealed, and we affirm the Judgment of the Trial Court.

A mortgage broker filed this breach of contract action against a real estate investor based upon the investor’s failure to pay a loan placement fee. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the mortgage broker. Because we find that there are genuine issues of material fact, we reverse the decision of the trial court and remand for further proceedings.

The petitioner, Jason D. Pillow, appeals the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. In this appeal, he contends that he received the ineffective assistance of counsel at trial and on appeal and that the sentence imposed by the trial court violates the terms of Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S. Ct. 2531 (2004). Discerning no error, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

In this domestic dispute, Father appeals contending that the trial court erred in its retroactive treatment of child support and rehabilitative alimony, the assessment of interest, the accounting of payments made by Father to Mother, denying Father’s requested modification of his child support and alimony obligation, denying his requested modification of the parenting schedule and awarding attorney’s fees to Mother. We affirm in part and reverse in part and remand the case to the trial court for recalculation of the statutory interest and arrearages and a redetermination of whether the facts in the case support an upward deviation from the Child Support Guidelines.

The petitioner, Gregory Morrow, appeals the Shelby County Criminal Court’s denial of his petition for post-conviction relief from his conviction of possession of 300 grams or more of cocaine with intent to sell and two counts of possession of marijuana and resulting fifteen-year sentence to the Department of Correction. He claims that he is entitled to post-conviction relief because he was denied the effective assistance of counsel at trial. We hold that his petition was not filed timely and is therefore barred by the one-year statute of limitations, and we vacate the judgment denying post-conviction relief and remand the case for entry of an order of dismissal.

Capital Petitioner Tyrone Chalmers appeals as of right the judgment of the Shelby County Criminal Court denying his petition for post-conviction relief. In 1997, the petitioner was convicted of one count of first degree felony murder and one count of especially aggravated robbery. The jury sentenced him to death after finding that the evidence of an aggravating circumstance, that the defendant was previously convicted of one or more felonies other than the present charge, whose statutory elements involve the use of violence to the person, see Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-204(i)(2), outweighed evidence of mitigating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt. The trial judge imposed a sentence of twenty years for the especially aggravated robbery conviction, to run concurrently with the death sentence but consecutively to sentences previously imposed in another case. See State v. Chalmers, 28 S.W.3d 913, 915 (Tenn. 2000). On April 19, 2001, the petitioner filed a pro se petition for post-conviction relief. An amended petition was filed on September 22, 2003. An evidentiary hearing was conducted in August 2005. On January 24, 2006, the trial court entered an order denying post-conviction relief. On appeal to this court, the petitioner presents a number of claims that can be characterized in the following broad categories: (1) the ineffective assistance of counsel and (2) the constitutionality of the imposition of a sentence of death. Following a thorough and exhaustive review of the record and the applicable law, we affirm the judgment of the postconviction court.

The defendant, Adell Watkins, was indicted for one count of the knowing sale of cocaine and for one count of knowingly and unlawfully delivering cocaine, a Schedule II controlled substance. She was convicted on both counts. Her convictions were merged and she received an eight-year sentence.  The defendant argues on appeal that the evidence was insufficient to sustain her convictions.  Following our review of the parties’ briefs, the record, and the applicable law, we affirm the decision of the trial court.

The petitioner, who is serving a twenty-year sentence for aggravated rape, filed the present post-conviction action alleging he did not receive the effective assistance of counsel at trial. The trial court conducted a hearing and denied his claim, and he appealed. Upon review, we hold that the trial court did not err in denying relief, and we affirm its judgment.

Following a July 2006 jury trial, the defendant, Julius Hill, was convicted of one count of possession of 0.5 gram or more of cocaine with intent to sell, a Class B felony, one count of possession of 0.5 gram or more of cocaine with intent to deliver, a Class B felony, and two counts of simple possession of a controlled substance, a Class A misdemeanor. The trial court merged the two felony convictions and sentenced the defendant as a Range I, standard offender, to twelve years in the Department of Correction on the felony conviction and eleven months, twenty-nine days on each misdemeanor conviction, with all sentences to be served concurrently. On appeal, the defendant contends that the evidence produced at trial was insufficient to convict him of the felony counts and that the trial court imposed an excessive sentence. After reviewing the record, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The defendant, Krista Regina Lesch, pled guilty to three counts of obtaining a Schedule II controlled substance by fraud (Class D felony) and attempted child neglect (Class E felony). She was sentenced as a Range I, standard offender to two years on community corrections for one of the Class D felonies and to one year on community corrections for the Class E felony, with the sentences to run concurrently with credit for time served. She was further sentenced to two years on both of the other Class D felony convictions, with those sentences to run consecutively to the other sentence for a total effective sentence of six years, with time served and the balance on community corrections. The defendant violated the terms of her community corrections sentences on several occasions and eventually had her sentences revoked and increased. On appeal, she argues that the trial court erred in revoking her community corrections release and in increasing her effective sentence from six to nine years. After careful review, we conclude that no error exists and affirm the judgments from the trial court.

The petitioner, David Lee Cook, appeals the circuit court’s order summarily dismissing his pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus. Following our review of the record and applicable law, we affirm the circuit court’s order.

In 2004, the plaintiff, Lacay Crew, filed a workers’ compensation claim alleging injuries to her left and right hands, wrists, and arms, while in the course and scope of her employment. In response, the defendant, First Source Furniture Group, d/b/a Anderson Hickey Company, denied the claim on issues of causation. The trial court found that Crew sustained a compensable, gradual injury to  both upper extremities and awarded a permanent partial vocational disability of 25% to each upper extremity equating to a judgment award of $25,479.00. Discretionary costs in the amount of  $150.00 were awarded for reimbursement to Crew for a doctor’s completion of a Tennessee Department of Labor Form C-32 on Crew’s behalf. The Special Workers’ Compensation Appeals Panel found that there was insufficient evidence of causation and dismissed the case. We affirm the decision of the Appeals Panel.

The petitioner, David Allen Lane, appeals both the post-conviction court's ruling regarding his post-conviction relief and the denial of his motion to withdraw his guilty plea. The judgment of the trial court denying the motion to withdraw the guilty plea is affirmed. Because the petitioner was denied the effective assistance of counsel and because the post-conviction court failed to comply with the requirements of State v. Boyd, 51 S.W.3d 206 (Tenn. 2000), the judgment of the post-conviction court vacating and reinstating the judgment is reversed, the judgment is vacated and the cause is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

In this appeal, we determine the priority between two recorded deeds of trust. Homeowners entered into a line of credit with a credit union secured by a recorded deed of trust on the homeowners’ home. The homeowners subsequently refinanced their home with a bank. The bank paid off the homeowners’ debt to the credit union, and recorded its own deed of trust securing its loan. At that same time, the loan and deed of trust was assigned to a second bank. Despite the payoff of the homeowners’ debt by the assignor bank, the first deed of trust to the credit union was never released, and the homeowners continued to draw on the line of credit. When the homeowners began having financial problems, the assignee bank discovered that the credit union had never released its deed of trust on the homeowners’ property because of a provision in the deed of trust stating that its release was conditioned upon the borrower requesting the cancellation of the line of credit. When the homeowners defaulted on both loans, the question arose as to which party’s deed of trust had priority. The trial court ruled in favor of the assignee bank on the basis that the credit union was equitably estopped from asserting its deed of trust because, at the time of payoff, the credit union did not follow its self-imposed practice of advising if any action other than payoff was required before release of the deed of trust. After careful review, we reverse because we conclude that the assignor bank had the means of discovering that payoff alone was insufficient to trigger the release of the deed of trust and because, under state statutory law, it had prior notice of all prerequisites to release the deed of trust as a result of the credit union’s registration of such deed.

In 1997, a Davidson County jury convicted the Petitioner, Wayford Demonbreun, Jr., of one count of second degree murder and one count of aggravated assault, and the trial court sentenced him to an effective sentence of twenty-five years in prison. The Petitioner filed a petition for habeas corpus relief, his third such petition, alleging that his conviction is void because: (1) the trial court never conducted a hearing on his motion for new trial and, therefore, never performed his duty as a thirteenth juror; and (2) the trial court lacked statutory authority to render a valid judgment pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated section 17-1-305. The habeas court denied the petition. On appeal, the Petitioner contends that the habeas court erred. Finding no error, we affirm the judgment of the habeas court.

We granted permission to appeal in these consolidated cases to determine whether  Tennessee’s consecutive sentencing scheme passes constitutional muster under the holdings of Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), and Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296 (2004). We also address the “physical facts rule” in Defendant Lumpkin’s case. We hold that the trial courts’ imposition of consecutive sentences in these cases did not violate the Defendants’ federal constitutional rights. We also hold that the physical facts rule does not require the reversal of Defendant Lumpkin’s convictions. Accordingly, we affirm the judgments of the Court of Criminal Appeals in both cases.

The Appellant, Brian Roger Neu, appeals the imposition of consecutive sentences by the Madison County Circuit Court. Neu’s sentences stem from his guilty pleas to domestic assault, possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia, all class A misdemeanors. Following a sentencing hearing, the trial court imposed sentences of eleven months and twenty-nine days for each conviction. The court further ordered that Neu’s sentences for possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia be served concurrently to each other but consecutively to his sentence for domestic assault. Following review, the sentencing decision is affirmed.

This interlocutory appeal arises from Plaintiff/Taxpayer’s action against the Commissioner of Revenue under Tennessee Code Annotated § 67-1-1802 for a refund of taxes. The trial court granted Plaintiff’s motion to compel documents sought by Plaintiff in response to the Commissioner’s motion to dismiss based on the statutory limitations period prescribed in section 67-1-1802. We reverse.

From a trial de novo of an unlawful detainer action in circuit court, the defendant homeowner appeals, pro se, an award of summary judgment in favor of the purchaser at foreclosure. In a filing entered in general sessions – and considered by the circuit court – the defendant homeowner raised the defense of wrongful foreclosure, alleging the lender had failed to notify her of the default, of her opportunity to cure the default, and of the foreclosure sale itself. The plaintiff purchaser failed to address these points on motion for summary judgment, thus leaving open this factual question. Finding that there was a genuine issue of material fact bearing directly upon the plaintiff purchaser’s right to immediate possession of the property, we reverse the award of summary judgment and remand the matter.

The Appellant, Paul David James, Jr., appeals the sentencing decision of the Grundy County Circuit Court. Pursuant to a plea agreement, James pled guilty to one count of aggravated burglary, with the trial court determining the sentence length and manner of service of the sentence. After a sentencing hearing, the trial court sentenced James to five years in the Tennessee Department of Correction. On appeal, James challenges the length and manner of the sentence, arguing that the trial court improperly considered his lengthy history of dismissed criminal charges in enhancing the sentence two years above the statutory minimum and in denying alternative sentencing. After a thorough review of the briefs of the parties and the record, we affirm.

This appeal arises from a divorce action. The trial court named Father primary residential parent of the parties’ minor child, and Mother appeals. We affirm.

The defendant, Sean Thomas Corlew, pled guilty to driving under the influence, first offense, in the Tipton County Circuit Court. Pursuant to Rule 37(b)(2)(A) of the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure, the defendant reserved a certified question of law challenging the denial of his motion to suppress based upon his allegation that the officer lacked reasonable suspicion to support the stop leading to his eventual arrest. Following our review, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The defendant, Debra Elaine Moore, was convicted of criminally negligent homicide ( Class E felony) and aggravated child abuse (Class A felony). She was sentenced to two years for the Class E felony and twenty-five years for the Class A felony, with the sentences to run concurrently for an effective sentence of twenty-five years. The defendant raises four issues on appeal including whether the evidence was sufficient to support the finding of guilt. Because the defendant did not file either a timely motion for new trial or notice of appeal, this court declines to review the subsequently waived issues. However, we do review her issue of sufficiency of the evidence and conclude that the evidence was sufficient to support the guilty verdicts. Therefore, the judgments from the trial court are affirmed.