APPELLATE COURT OPINIONS

The Appellant, Cumberland Bail Bonding Company, appeals the Roane County Criminal Court’s denial of its petitions to write bonds in the Criminal Courts of the Ninth Judicial District. On appeal, the Appellant argues that because it met all the necessary qualifications for bonding companies, the trial court’s order withholding approval for it to write bonds should be reversed, and the case should be remanded with instructions to approve it to write bonds as requested or with instructions to implement the procedures outlined in Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-11-125 in an expedited fashion. Upon review, we reverse the judgment of the trial court and remand the case for entry of an order approving the Appellant to write bonds in the Ninth Judicial District.

Pro se Petitioner, Willie Andrew Cole, appeals the post-conviction court’s summary dismissal of his petition requesting DNA analysis pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated Section 40-30-301. The sole issue presented for our review is whether the post-conviction court erred in dismissing the petition for DNA analysis without a response from the State or an evidentiary hearing. Upon review, we reverse the judgment of the post-conviction court and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

The petitioner, Eric Cathey, filed in the Shelby County Criminal Court a petition for post-conviction relief from his convictions of felony murder and aggravated child abuse, alleging that his trial counsel was ineffective. After an evidentiary hearing, the post-conviction court denied the petition, and the petitioner appeals. Upon review, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

Appellant, Colby Terrell Black, was serving an effective twelve-year suspended sentence imposed as a result of his 2007, 2008, and 2010 guilty pleas to aggravated assault, two counts of sale of cocaine, and a second aggravated assault, respectively. He was arrested in 2011 for aggravated domestic assault. The trial court held a revocation hearing, after which it revoked appellant’s probation and ordered execution of his sentences. He successfully appealed the trial court’s order on the basis that the trial court failed to set forth the evidence it relied upon in ordering revocation and did not address the allegation that appellant had committed a new offense. The trial court complied with this court’s directive and filed an extensive order detailing the reasons for revocation. Appellant again appeals, claiming that the trial court erred by not considering his mental state at the time of the offense and by failing to find that the preponderance of the evidence supported the trial court’s decision to revoke his probation. Upon our review, we discern no error and affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Troy Reynolds (“the Defendant”) pleaded guilty in February 2012 to evading arrest by vehicle, theft of property valued at over $1,000, and burglary. Pursuant to a plea agreement, he was sentenced as a Range I standard offender to an effective sentence of three years to be suspended and served on supervised probation, consecutive to an earlier suspended sentence. The State later filed a violation of probation warrant. The Defendant was taken into custody, and a probation revocation hearing was held. At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court revoked the Defendant’s probation and ordered him to serve the remainder of his sentence in confinement. The Defendant appealed the trial court’s ruling. Upon our thorough review of the record and applicable law, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.

The defendant, Stanley B. Hill, was convicted by a Blount County jury of the first degree premeditated murder of his wife, Vickie Hill, and sentenced to life imprisonment. On appeal, he argues that the trial court committed reversible error by: (1) allowing the medical examiner to use demonstrative evidence that was inherently unreliable, unfairly prejudicial, cumulative, and not disclosed to defense counsel prior to trial and (2) excluding a piece of physical evidence as a sanction for his violation of the reciprocal discovery obligations under Rule 16 of the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure. Following our review, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

A Cumberland County jury convicted the Petitioner, Gary Thomas Reed, of initiating the process of manufacturing methamphetamine. This Court affirmed the Petitioner’s conviction and sentence on appeal. State v. Gary Thomas Reed, No. E2009-02238-CCA-R3-CD, 2011 WL 1842711 (Tenn. Crim. App., at Knoxville, Aug. 24, 2011), perm. app. denied (Tenn. Aug. 24, 2011). The Petitioner timely filed a petition for post-conviction relief claiming that he had received the ineffective assistance of counsel. The post-conviction court denied relief after a hearing. On appeal, the Petitioner claims that his attorney failed to call an exculpatory witness at trial and failed to object to a violation of the sequestration rule. After a thorough review of the record, the briefs, and relevant authorities, we affirm the post-conviction court’s judgment.

The Petitioner, Jerry Whiteside Dickerson, appeals the Johnson County Criminal Court’s summary dismissal of his petition for the writ of habeas corpus regarding his convictions for first degree felony murder and especially aggravated robbery, for which he is serving an effective life sentence. The Petitioner contends that the trial court erred in dismissing the petition. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Defendant pled guilty to one count of possession of more than 0.5 grams of cocaine with intent to sell, a Class B felony, and one count of driving with a suspended license, a Class B misdemeanor, while reserving a certified question of law concerning the constitutionality of a city ordinance requiring vehicles operating within the municipality to have a “tag light” illuminating the vehicle’s license plate after dark. The defendant was sentenced to eight years probation on the possession charge and to a concurrent six months probation for driving with a suspended license. Upon review, we conclude that the certified question reserved by the defendant is not dispositive of the constitutionality of the traffic stop at issue. The defendant’s appeal is dismissed accordingly.

Petitioner, Adrian Curb, filed a petition for post-conviction relief, or in the alternative, a petition for writ of error coram nobis, challenging the conviction resulting from his 1997 guilty plea to aggravated assault. As grounds for relief, he claimed that his attempted first degree murder indictment was improperly amended to aggravated assault, thus coercing him into involuntarily pleading guilty to the amended charge. The post-conviction court summarily dismissed the petition because petitioner failed to establish an exception to the one-year statute of limitation for petitions for post-conviction relief. The court also concluded that petitioner failed to demonstrate the requisite factors for newly discovered evidence as required for writ of error coram nobis relief. Following our review, we discern no error and affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

In this case, Defendant filed a motion to dismiss the indictment pursuant to the constitutional protections afforded him to be protected from double jeopardy. Defendant asserts in this interlocutory appeal that the trial court erred by denying the motion. I concur in the results reached by the majority, but write separately to express my opinion that the only justifiable reason for the trial court to deny the motion was the Defendant’s failure to explicitly object to the declaration of a mistrial.
 

A Knox County Criminal Court Jury convicted the appellant, Josh L. Bowman, of three counts of first degree felony murder, one count of especially aggravated kidnapping, one count of especially aggravated robbery, two counts of aggravated burglary, and one count of employing a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony. After the jury announced its verdicts, the appellant pled guilty to one count of employing a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony when, at the time of the offense, the appellant had a prior felony conviction. The trial court merged the murder convictions, merged the burglary convictions, merged the employing a firearm convictions, and sentenced the appellant to an effective sentence of life plus sixty years in confinement. On appeal, the appellant contends that the trial court erred by failing to suppress his statement to police, by allowing the State to show a transcript of his statement simultaneously with his video-recorded statement, and by failing to instruct the jury as provided by State v. White, 362 S.W.3d 559 (Tenn. 2012). Based upon the oral arguments, the record, and the parties’ briefs, we conclude that the trial court’s failing to instruct the jury properly pursuant to White constitutes reversible error. Therefore, the appellant’s conviction for especially aggravated kidnapping must be reversed and the case remanded to the trial court for a new trial as to that offense.

I concur in that portion of the majority opinion which holds the trial court did not err by denying the appellant’s motion to suppress his statement. I disagree with the remaining parts of the opinion and therefore would affirm all the judgments of the trial court.

The Defendant, Stanley Abernathy James, was convicted by a Knox County Criminal Court jury of second degree murder, a Class A felony, for which he is serving a twenty-five-year sentence. In this appeal, the Defendant contends that the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

In two separate cases, the Defendant, Amber R. Galemore, pled guilty to possession with intent to sell or deliver cocaine and to theft of property. She was sentenced to an effective sentence of eight years on probation. As part of the Defendant’s plea agreement, she reserved a certified question of law pursuant to Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 37(b)(2). The question is articulated in the record as, “Whether the search warrant issued by a General Sessions Judge for Montgomery County, Tennessee, which was based on statements of an unknown person outside the defendant’s residence and computer keystroke software results[,] provided a sufficient nexus to make a probable cause determination.” After reviewing the record and applicable law, we conclude that the trial court did not err when it denied the Defendant’s motion to suppress. Accordingly, we affirm the Defendant’s convictions.

This is an interlocutory appeal, pursuant to Tennessee Rule of Appellate Procedure 9, from the trial court’s grant of a mistrial based upon a “manifest necessity.” The Defendant, Lamar Parrish Carter, appeals the trial court’s ruling, arguing that his attorney’s cross-examination of a co-defendant about her range of punishment, which was also the range of punishment for the Defendant, was not improper and did not warrant a mistrial. After a thorough review of the record and the relevant law, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.

The defendant, Carlos Smith, appeals his Shelby County Criminal Court jury convictions of two counts of attempted second degree murder, two counts of aggravated assault, and one count each of aggravated robbery, especially aggravated burglary, employing a firearm during a dangerous offense, and being a convicted felon in possession of a handgun, claiming that the trial court erred by denying his motion to sever offenses and that the State violated the tenets of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). Discerning no error, we affirm.

Appellant, Sarah Lynn Hannon, pleaded guilty to possession with intent to sell or deliver 0.5 grams or more of cocaine in exchange for a sentence of ten years and dismissal of all remaining charges. Per the terms of the plea agreement, the parties left determination of the manner of service of her sentence to the trial court. Following a sentencing hearing, the trial court ordered that appellant serve her ten-year sentence in the Tennessee Department of Correction. It is from this judgment that appellant now appeals. Following our review, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

In this appeal as of right, the State contends that the trial court erred by setting aside the jury verdicts of attempted second degree murder and entering judgments of acquittal for those counts based upon the doctrine of transferred intent. Also in this appeal, the defendant challenges his convictions of first degree premeditated murder, felony murder, and attempted first degree murder on grounds that the evidence was insufficient to support those convictions. Because the trial court erred by setting aside the jury verdicts of attempted second degree murder, the judgments effecting those verdicts and the 12-year sentences are reinstated. The judgments of the trial court are affirmed in all other respects.

A Davidson County Criminal Court Jury convicted the appellant, Albert Lamont Bennett, Jr., of attempted aggravated assault and attempted aggravated burglary. The trial court sentenced the appellant as a Range III, persistent offender to ten years for each offense, to be served consecutively, for a total effective sentence of twenty years in the Tennessee Department of Correction. On appeal, the appellant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence sustaining his convictions and the sentences imposed by the trial court. Upon review, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

The Petitioner, Randy Clayton Norman, appeals the Maury County Circuit Court’s denial of his petition for post-conviction relief from his conviction of second degree murder and resulting fifteen-year sentence. On appeal, the Petitioner contends that he received the ineffective assistance of trial and appellate counsel. Based upon the record and the parties’ briefs, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

Petitioner, Brian Wesley Lacey, appeals from the trial court’s dismissal of his petition for post-conviction relief following an evidentiary hearing. Petitioner asserts he received ineffective assistance of counsel at the trial and on appeal. After a thorough review, we affirm the judgment of the trial court dismissing the petition for post-conviction relief.

The Petitioner, Shelvy Baker, appeals the Davidson County Criminal Court’s denial of his petition for post-conviction relief from his conviction of second degree murder and resulting twenty-five-year sentence. On appeal, the Petitioner contends that he received the ineffective assistance of trial counsel. Based upon the record and the parties’ briefs, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

Petitioner, Antonio Angel Onate, appeals from the Davidson County Circuit Court’s summary dismissal of his petition for post-conviction relief after a 2011 guilty plea to facilitation to sell cocaine weighing less than .5 grams. Petitioner argues that the trial court erred by concluding that the petition was untimely and that the one-year statute of limitations was not tolled. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

A father’s parental rights to his two children were terminated on the grounds of abandonment by engaging in conduct exhibiting a wanton disregard for the welfare of the children, non-compliance with the permanency plan, and severe child abuse against children who resided with Father. He appeals, contending that the Department of Children’s Services failed to expend reasonable efforts to reunite him with the children and that termination of his rights was not in the children’s best interest. Finding no error, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.