State of Tennessee v. Mark A. Bales

The defendant, Mark Anthony Bales, pled guilty to attempted second degree murder. After accepting his plea, the trial court sentenced the defendant to serve eleven years as a Range I standard offender. The defendant now appeals his sentence arguing that the trial court erred (1) by finding that when the defendant committed the instant crime, he treated the victim with exceptional cruelty; (2) by giving insufficient weight to two applicable mitigating factors, the defendant's excellent social history and his lack of a criminal record; and (3) by sentencing the defendant to a term of years that made him ineligible for consideration for an alternative sentence. After a thorough review of the record, we find that none of the defendant's allegations merit relief and accordingly affirm his sentence.