APPELLATE COURT OPINIONS

This case arises out of a petition to reopen paternity proceedings filed by Appellant. When Appellee refused to submit to a DNA test, Appellant filed a petition to find Appellee in contempt of court. The trial court refused to find Appellee in contempt and determined that Appellee need not submit to a DNA test. Appellant filed her notice of appeal and seeks review by this Court. For the following reasons, we affirm the trial court.
 

The defendant, Thomas L. Gouge, appeals from the trial court's revocation of probation requiring a sixty-day jail sentence. The order of revocation provided that the defendant reside in a work release facility for an unspecified amount of time after service of sixty days and that his probationary release was conditioned upon his refraining from taking residence "with any female to whom he is not married." The order of revocation is affirmed; the sentence, however, is modified by deleting the provision prohibiting the sharing of the residence with an unmarried woman.

The Trial Court determined there were statutory grounds to terminate the mother's parental rights and that termination was in the child's best interest, all by clear and convincing evidence. On appeal, we affirm.

The Appellant, Frederick D. Rice, appeals the judgment of the Hamilton County Criminal Court dismissing his petition for post-conviction relief. On appeal, Rice raises the single issue of whether he was denied the effective assistance of counsel at trial. After review of the record, we affirm the dismissal of the petition.

Following a jury trial, Defendant, Recardo Dale, was convicted of one count of especially aggravated robbery and one count of attempted first degree murder. The trial court sentenced Defendant as a Range I standard offender to twenty-five years for the especially aggravated robbery conviction and twenty-five years for the criminal attempt conviction. The trial court ordered Defendant’s sentences to be served consecutively for an effective sentence of fifty years. Defendant appeals the sufficiency of the convicting evidence, the lengths of his sentences, and the imposition of consecutive sentencing. Since the filing of the briefs, Defendant has also asked us to consider the impact of the ruling in Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. ___, 124 S. Ct. 2531 (2004) on the lengths of his sentences. After a thorough review of the record, we affirm Defendant’s convictions and the imposition of consecutive sentencing. Pursuant to the holding in Blakely, we modify each sentence to twenty-two years, for an effective sentence of forty-four years.

Following a jury trial, the Defendant was convicted of robbery. He was sentenced to six years in the Department of Correction. On appeal he challenges the sufficiency of the convicting evidence and argues that the trial court erred in sentencing him to the maximum term of six years. We affirm the Defendant’s conviction but modify his sentence to five years.

The defendant, Robbie W. Fields, was indicted by the Bradley County Grand Jury for possession of a Schedule I controlled substance, ecstasy, with intent to sell or deliver; possession of a Schedule VI controlled substance, marijuana, with intent to sell or deliver; possession of drug paraphernalia; tampering with evidence; and theft of property under $500. After a pretrial hearing, the trial court suppressed the evidence, and the charges were dismissed, which the State argues was error. Following our review, we reverse the trial court's determination that the officers unlawfully entered the defendant's apartment and remand for additional findings of fact and conclusions of law as to the seizure of evidence.

The majority concludes that modification of the Defendant’s sentence is required in light of Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S.___, 124 S. Ct. 2531 (2004). I must respectfully dissent

The defendant was convicted by a jury of one count of theft over $1,000 but less than $10,000 and three counts of forgery, all Class D felonies, and was sentenced as a Range I, standard offender to three years on the theft count and two years on each of the forgery counts. The two-year sentences were ordered to be served concurrently but consecutively to the three-year sentence, for a total effective sentence of five years. Split confinement was ordered, with forty-five days to be served in the county jail and the remainder of the sentence on probation. In addition, she was ordered to pay $2,233.94 in restitution. The defendant timely appealed, alleging: (1) the evidence is insufficient to support her convictions; and (2) the trial court erred in allowing certain photographs to be admitted into evidence and in sentencing the defendant. Based on our review, we affirm the judgments of the trial court but modify the defendant’s sentences to reflect that they are to be served concurrently.

The defendant, Raymond D. Simpson, pled guilty to criminally negligent homicide, a Class E felony. The trial court imposed a Range I sentence ¹ of two years. The defendant was ordered to serve seven months in confinement and the remainder on probation. The defendant contends that the trial court erred by denying full probation and/or community corrections. The judgment of the trial court is affirmed; the sentence must be modified, however, to a Range I term of one year, with 105 days to be served in confinement and the balance on probation.

In this workers' compensation appeal, we must determine whether the appellee, a father who supervised the construction of his daughter's residence, is required to pay workers' compensation benefits to the appellant, the employee of a subcontractor who was injured during the construction of the residence. We hold that the father is an uncompensated agent of the owner and therefore falls within the owner's exemption of Tennessee Code Annotated section 50-6-113(f) (1999). Thus, we adopt the conclusions of the Special Workers' Compensation Appeals Panel affirming the judgment of the trial court.

I write separately to call attention to what I believe is disparate treatment of two cases which, on all pertinent points, seem to be identical. The case presently before this Court involves an inattentive or negligent driver havinga single-vehicle accident while transporting two of his children and his new wife in a vehicle with no seat belts or child restraint devices. In a tragic, yet foreseeable, turn of events, eleven-month-old Jonathan was fatally injured when the truck rolled over on its side and his head struck a pillar on the passenger side of the truck. Despite the efforts of his father, the  defendant in this case, young Jonathan died from cardiac arrest resulting from his head trauma.

Defendant, Julius Q. Perkins, was indicted on one count of first degree premeditated murder and one count of first degree felony murder. Following a jury trial, Defendant was found guilty of felony murder and not guilty of premeditated murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. On appeal, Defendant argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction of felony murder because the State failed to show that the victim was killed during a robbery or attempted robbery, or, alternatively, that Defendant was criminally responsible for the death of the victim. After a thorough review of the record, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The Defendant, Chris Grunder, was convicted of especially aggravated kidnapping, aggravated rape, aggravated assault, and theft of property over $500.00. The trial court sentenced the Defendant to an effective sentence of thirty-one years. On appeal, the Defendant contends that: (1) the evidence is insufficient to sustain his convictions; and (2) the trial court erred when it sentenced him. After thoroughly reviewing the record and the applicable authorities, we affirm all of the Defendant's convictions. Further, we hold that the trial court improperly enhanced the Defendant's sentences in light of Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. __, 124 S. Ct. 2531 (2004), and we reduce the Defendant's sentence in accordance with this opinion to an effective sentence of twenty-nine years. We remand the case for the entry of judgments of conviction consistent with this opinion.

The defendant, Bradley Lonsinger, was convicted of attempt to manufacture a Schedule II controlled substance, methamphetamine, a Class D felony, and was sentenced as a Range II, multiple offender to eight years in the Tennessee Department of Correction and fined $5000. He raises two issues on appeal: (1) whether the search warrant leading to his arrest was based on sufficient probable cause; and (2) whether the evidence was sufficient to support his conviction. Based on our review, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

This matter is before the Court upon the State's motion to affirm the judgment of the trial court by memorandum opinion pursuant to Rule 20, Rules of the Court of Criminal Appeals. The petitioner has appealed the trial court's order summarily dismissing the petition for the writ of habeas corpus. In that petition, the petitioner alleges that the indictment charging the petitioner with first degree felony murder is void because the word "robbery" was handwritten on the indictment. Upon a review of the record in this case we are persuaded that the trial court was correct in summarily dismissing the habeas corpus petition and that this case meets the criteria for affirmance pursuant to Rule 20, Rules of the Court of Criminal Appeals. Accordingly, the State's motion is granted and the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

The petitioner, Jon Hall, appeals as of right the judgment of the Madison County Circuit Court denying his petition for post-conviction relief from his capital murder conviction. The petitioner was convicted of the 1994 first degree murder of his estranged wife, Billie Jo Hall. At the conclusion of the penalty phase of the trial, the jury found one aggravating circumstance that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious and cruel in that it involved torture or serious physical abuse beyond that necessary to produce death. See T.C.A. § 39-13-204(i)(5). The jury further found that the aggravating circumstance outweighed the evidence of mitigating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt and sentenced the petitioner to death. The petitioner’s conviction and sentence of death were affirmed on appeal. See State v. Hall, 8 S.W.3d 593 (Tenn. 1999), reh’g denied, (Dec. 27, 1999), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 837 (2000). The petitioner filed a pro se petition for post-conviction relief on December 7, 2000, which was followed by an amended petition on November 1, 2001. On February 20, 2003, the trial court denied relief and dismissed the petition. The petitioner appeals, claiming that: (1) counsel were ineffective at the guilt phase; (2) counsel were ineffective at the penalty phase; (3) the heinous, atrocious or cruel aggravating circumstance is unconstitutional as applied in this case; (4) the imposition of the death penalty is unreliable and violates principles protected by both the United States and Tennessee Constitutions; and (5) the death sentence is unconstitutional as it infringes upon the petitioner’s right to life and is not necessary to promote any compelling state interest. We conclude that no error of law requires
reversal, and we affirm the trial court’s denial of post-conviction relief.

After a jury trial held on January 15 and 16, 2003, the defendant, Timothy Ryan Baggett, was found guilty of one count of rape as charged. The trial court then sentenced the defendant to ten (10) years as a violent offender at 100% service of sentence. The defendant appealed to this Court arguing: (1) that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction; (2) that the prosecutor made improper comments during closing argument that amounted to prosecutorial misconduct; and (3) that in sentencing the defendant the trial court relied upon evidence not in the record. We have found each of these issues to be without merit and, therefore, affirm the judgment of the trial court, but modify the defendant's sentence to eight years at 100% service of sentence.

The petitioner, Clyde Dewayne Wesemann, appeals the dismissal of his petition for post-conviction relief from his convictions for first degree murder, aggravated burglary, and theft of property under $500, arguing that the post-conviction court erred in finding that he received effective assistance of trial counsel. After a thorough review of the record, we affirm the dismissal of the petition.

In this appeal we remand to the Trial Court with instructions and lift stay issued by this Court.

The Appellant, Weltha Womack, was convicted by a Knox County jury of one count of aggravated rape, a class A felony, and two counts of misdemeanor assault, resulting in an effective fifteen-year sentence. On appeal, Womack raises the following issues for our review: (1) the voluntariness of his statements to the police; (2) whether the trial court erred by permitting the State to amend the presentment on the morning of trial; (3) whether the trial court properly instructed the jury with regard to the requisite mental state for aggravated rape; and (4) whether the prosecutor's comments constituted prosecutorial misconduct in its closing argument. After review, we find merit with regard to issues (1) and (3) with respect to Womack's conviction for aggravated rape. Accordingly, the judgment of conviction for aggravated rape is reversed, and this case is remanded for a new trial consistent with this opinion.

This case is about enforcement of a settlement agreement. In 1994, the parties entered into a joint agreement for the development of residential property. In 1996, the plaintiff filed a lawsuit against the defendants, alleging breach of contract. The parties attempted to reach a settlement agreement to resolve the dispute. This resulted in a written agreement signed only by the defendant. The defendant made some payments pursuant to the written agreement, but further disputes arose. The defendant moved to enforce the settlement agreement. The plaintiff alleged that she never agreed to the final settlement agreement. The trial court held that the written settlement agreement was binding on the parties. The plaintiff then appealed this ruling, again alleging that no settlement agreement ever existed, and, in the alternative, that the defendant breached the settlement agreement by not tendering the required payments. We vacate the order of the trial court, finding that even if a valid settlement agreement existed, the defendant breached the agreement by failing to tender the required payments.
 

This appeal arises out of the parties’ divorce following their second marriage to each other.  The trial court inter alia awarded the wife $75,000 for her contributions, in the form of personal services to the husband’s medical practice, and awarded her one-half of the equity in the home where the parties resided during the second marriage. Husband appeals the first award, arguing that the medical practice was his separate property and that the wife failed to prove any increase in the value of the practice during the marriage. He appeals the second award, arguing that the trial court erred by not considering two marital debts when it awarded half of the equity in the home to the wife. We vacate the $75,000 award pertaining to the value of the husband’s medical practice because there is no evidence of the value of the practice at the beginning or end of the second marriage. We remand for further proceedings the award of the equity in the home because the trial court failed to consider two marital debts, the husband’s loan to wife of $18,500 – which she used to buy her current residence – and the couple’s debt of $10,599.12, for which they were jointly liable. On remand, the trial court should consider inter alia: 1) the purpose of each debt, 2) which party incurred the debt, 3) which party benefitted from incurring the debt, and 4) which party is best able to repay the debt.

The Appellant, Christopher Demotto Linsey, appeals from the judgment of the Montgomery County Circuit Court revoking his community corrections sentences. Linsey pled guilty to aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, and theft of property over $1,000.00 and, for these convictions, he received an effective eight-year sentence to be served in the Community Corrections Program. On November 21, 2002, a warrant was issued, alleging that Linsey violated the terms of his community corrections agreement based upon new arrests for domestic assault and possession of illegal drugs for resale and of drug paraphernalia. Following a hearing, the trial court ordered revocation of his community corrections sentences, and further ordered that his sentence for aggravated robbery be increased to ten years and that he serve the remainder of his now effective ten-year sentence in the Department of Correction. On appeal, Linsey argues that (1) the evidence was insufficient to establish that a violation occurred, (2) the trial court, in resentencing him to ten years for aggravated robbery, failed to conduct a sentencing hearing as required by the 1989 Sentencing Act, and (3) his sentences are excessive in light of Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. ___, 124 S. Ct. 2531 (2004). Finding no reversible error, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

I concur in the results of the opinion written by Judge Clement under the facts of this case and also concur in the holding that the method of presenting evidence to the trial court characterized as a “mediation” or an “Alternative Dispute Resolution Procedure” qualifies as neither under Tenn. S. Ct. R. 31.