State of Tennessee v. Sharrad Sharp

The Appellant, Sharrad Sharp, was convicted in the Shelby County Criminal Court of one count of aggravated child abuse of a child eight years of age or less, a Class A felony; two counts of aggravated child neglect of a child eight years of age or less, a Class A felony; one count of aggravated sexual battery of a child less than thirteen years of age, a Class B felony; three counts of aggravated assault, a Class C felony; and two counts of child abuse of a child eight years of age or less, a Class D felony. After a sentencing hearing, he received an effective thirty-seven-year sentence. On appeal, the Appellant contends that six of the
twenty-five counts of the indictment are void because they failed to state an offense, that it was plain error for the State to play the victims’ forensic interviews in their entirety for the jury and introduce those interviews into evidence, that the evidence is insufficient to support the convictions, and that the trial court abused its discretion by ordering consecutive sentencing. The State acknowledges that six of the convictions should be vacated because the indictment failed to provide the Appellant with adequate notice. Based upon the oral arguments, the record, and the parties’ briefs, we conclude that the Appellant’s convictions of aggravated child abuse in count one, aggravated child neglect in counts five and six, and aggravated assault in counts two, seven, and eight must be reversed and vacated and the charges dismissed because the indictment failed to provide the Appellant with adequate notice of the offenses charged. The Appellant’s remaining convictions of aggravated sexual battery in count seventeen and child abuse in counts eighteen and nineteen and the resulting effective sixteen-year sentence are affirmed.