OPINION THOMAS T. WOODALL , P.J. Defendant, Quincy Terrell Sharpe, was indicted by the Davidson County Grand Jury, along with his co-defendant DeAndre D. Rucker, for premeditated first degree murder. Defendant and Rucker were tried jointly, and both were convicted as charged. The trial court sentenced Defendant to a term of life imprisonment. In this appeal as of right, Defendant contends that the prosecutor committed prosecutorial misconduct during closing argument and that the evidence...
OPINION ROBERT H. MONTGOMERY, Jr. , J. The Petitioner, Arturo Jaimes-Garcia, appeals the Davidson County Criminal Court's denial of his petition for post-conviction relief from his 2007 drug-related convictions and his effective eighteen-year sentence. The Petitioner contends that he received the ineffective assistance of counsel. We affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court. This case arises from the Petitioner's selling cocaine to a confidential informant on three occasions. The...
OPINION TIMOTHY L. EASTER , Judge . Defendant, Timothy John McKnight, Jr., appeals from his conviction of aggravated robbery, arguing that the evidence is insufficient and that the trial court abused its discretion by improperly limiting cross-examination of two witnesses. After carefully reviewing the record, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. I. Procedural History Over nine years ago, Defendant and Melvin Jackson, Jr., were indicted on one count of aggravated robbery and one...
OPINION CAMILLE R. MCMULLEN , J. The Defendant-Appellant, Antoine Perrier, was convicted in the Shelby County Criminal Court of attempted voluntary manslaughter in Count 1, employment of a firearm during the attempt to commit a dangerous felony in Count 2, aggravated assault in Counts 3 through 7, and assault in Count 8. The trial court merged Count 3 with Count 1 before sentencing Perrier to an effective sentence of thirty years. In this delayed appeal, Perrier argues: (1) the trial...
OPINION ROBERT W. WEDEMEYER , J. A Lawrence County jury convicted the Defendant, Richard Bryant Long, of rape of a child, and the trial court sentenced him to serve twenty-five years in the Tennessee Department of Correction. On appeal, the Defendant contends that the trial court erred when it allowed a video recording of the victim's interview to be admitted without satisfying the requirements of Tennessee Code Annotated section 24-7-123. After a thorough review of the record and...
OPINION ROBERT W. WEDEMEYER , J. A Williamson County grand jury indicted the Defendant, Bradley Darrin Williams, for one count of driving under the influence ("DUI") and one count of DUI per se. The Defendant filed a pretrial motion to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of his traffic stop. The trial court denied the Defendant`s motion, and the Defendant pleaded guilty to the two counts of DUI. The trial court merged the convictions and sentenced the Defendant to eleven months and...
OPINION JOHN EVERETT WILLIAMS , J. Based on a tip from a confidential informant, police stopped the Defendant and ultimately discovered cocaine in his pocket. He was charged with possession of more than 0.5 grams of cocaine within 1,000 feet of a daycare, a Class B felony. The Defendant filed a motion to suppress the evidence, which the trial court granted. The State appeals, arguing that the confidential informant's credibility and basis of knowledge were sufficiently established, giving...
OPINION D. KELLY THOMAS, Jr, , J. The Defendant, Wendi Hope Tunny, appeals as of right from the Sevier County Circuit Court's denial of her request for judicial diversion and order that she serve her five-year sentence in split confinement following her guilty-pleaded conviction for theft of property valued at $10,000 or more but less than $60,000, a Class C felony. See Tenn. Code Ann. 39-14-103; -13-105(a)(4). On appeal, the Defendant contends that the trial court erred by failing to...
OPINION Alan E. Glenn , J. , delivered the opinion of the court, in which James Curwood Witt, Jr., and Robert L. Holloway, Jr., JJ., joined. The defendant, Jose Reyes, was convicted of one count of rape of a child and sentenced to thirty-two years at 100%. On appeal, he argues that the evidence is insufficient to sustain the verdict and that the trial court erred in several of its rulings. Specifically, he asserts that the trial court erred in: denying his motion in limine to prevent the...
OPINION D. KELLY THOMAS, Jr. , J. The Petitioner, Craig Abston, appeals as of right from the Shelby County Criminal Court's denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. On appeal, he raises the same lone issue that he raised in his petition and at the evidentiary hearing: that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to file a motion to suppress a statement given to police following his arrest. The State first challenges our jurisdiction to hear this appeal, and, alternatively,...
OPINION JOHN EVERETT WILLIAMS , J. The defendant, Sara Anne Neumann, was charged with one count of driving under the influence ("DUI"). The defendant filed a motion to suppress the evidence from the traffic stop, arguing that the arresting officer did not have reasonable suspicion that she was committing a traffic violation to justify the stop. The trial court agreed and granted the motion to suppress. The State now appeals, arguing that the officer's observation of the defendant and his...
OPINION ROBERT W. WEDEMEYER , J. The Defendant, Christopher Wilson, filed a Rule 9 interlocutory appeal seeking our review of the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence against him. The Defendant filed a motion to suppress the results of his blood alcohol test based upon a violation of Missouri v. McNeely, 133 S.Ct. 1552 (2013). The trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing and found that a "good faith exception" to the Defendant's forced blood draw existed and...
OPINION TIMOTHY L. EASTER , Judge . Petitioner, Andre Davis, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter by a Shelby County jury and sentenced to fourteen and one-half years in incarceration. His first appeal was denied. State v. Andre Davis, No. W2007-01442-CCA-R3-CD, 2008 WL 4831230, at *1 (Tenn. Crim. App. Nov. 5, 2008), perm. app. denied (Tenn. Mar. 16, 2009). Petitioner filed a pro se petition for post-conviction relief which led to the grant of a delayed appeal based on trial counsel'...
OPINION ROGER A. PAGE , Special Judge . Appellant, Marcus Traveno Cox, Jr., stands convicted (after merger of duplicate counts) of possession with intent to sell less than .5 grams of cocaine, possession with intent to sell more than one-half ounce but less than ten pounds of marijuana, possession of a Schedule III controlled substance (Lortab), possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of a firearm with intent to go armed during the commission of a dangerous felony. The trial court...
OPINION JOHN EVERETT WILLIAMS , J. The defendant, Hester Croy, was convicted of theft of property under $500, a Class A misdemeanor. On appeal, she argues that the trial court erred by ruling that her prior convictions for theft of property would be admissible for impeachment purposes if she testified. Following our review, we conclude that this issue is waived due to the defendant's failure to file a motion for new trial and that plain error review is not warranted. We affirm the...
OPINION NORMA McGEE OGLE , J. A Rutherford County Circuit Court Jury convicted the appellant, Matthew Whitehair, of two counts of aggravated sexual battery, a Class B felony; one count each of incest, statutory rape by an authority figure, and sexual battery by an authority figure, Class C felonies; five counts of attempted incest, a Class D felony; two counts of sexual battery, a Class E felony; and one count of assault, a Class A misdemeanor. After a sentencing hearing, the trial court...
OPINION THOMAS T. WOODALL , P.J. Defendant, Garrick Graham, and his Co-Defendant, Bashan Murchison, were convicted of numerous drug offenses by a Sullivan County Jury. Specifically, Defendant Graham was convicted of three counts of delivery of .5 grams or more of cocaine (counts 1,3,5), three counts of sale of .5 grams or more of cocaine (counts 2, 4, 6), delivery of .5 grams or more of cocaine within 1,000 feet of a recreation center (count 7), sale of .5 grams or more of cocaine within...
OPINION ROBERT H. MONTGOMERY, Jr. , Judge . The Defendant, Zachary James Pence, was found guilty by an Anderson County Circuit Court jury of aggravated rape of a child, a Class A felony, aggravated child abuse, a Class A felony, and child abuse, a Class D felony. See T.C.A. 39-13-531 (2014), 39-15-402 (2010) (amended 2011, 2012), 39-15-401 (2010) (amended 2011). The trial court sentenced the Defendant to concurrent terms of sixty years for the aggravated rape of a child conviction,...
OPINION ALAN E. GLENN , J. The defendant, currently serving a life sentence as the result of a 1984 conviction for armed robbery, filed a motion to correct an illegal sentence, pursuant to Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 36.1, claiming that the sentencing court erred in finding him to be a "persistent offender." His motion was denied without a hearing, and he appealed. Following our review, we affirm the order of the trial court dismissing the motion. FACTS Before reviewing this...
OPINION D. KELLY THOMAS, Jr. , J. The Defendant, Danny Wayne Horn, was convicted by a jury of aggravated sexual battery, a Class B felony. See Tenn. Code Ann. 39-13-504. He received a sentence of ten years' incarceration for said conviction. The Defendant now appeals, arguing that the evidence presented was insufficient to support his conviction; that the trial court erred in denying his request for a mistrial after the victim stated that she identified the Defendant from "his picture...
