APPELLATE COURT OPINIONS

Petitioner, Betty Sparks, appeals the denial of her post-conviction petition alleging that the post-conviction court erred in finding that she received the effective assistance of counsel at trial. Following our review of the entire record and the briefs of the parties, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

The petitioner, Carlos Gonzalez, appeals the denial of his post-conviction petition, arguing the post-conviction court erred in finding he received the effective assistance of counsel. After our review of the record, briefs, and applicable law, we affirm the denial of the petition.

The defendant, Nolan T. Williams, pled guilty to rape. After a sentencing hearing, the trial court ordered the defendant to serve an eight-year sentence in confinement with the Tennessee Department of Correction. On appeal, the defendant contends the trial court erred in sentencing him to confinement. Following review, we dismiss the appeal as untimely.

Halbert Grant Law, Jr. (“Husband”) and Barbara Matthews Law (“Wife”) divorced in 2020, and Husband appealed the ruling to this Court. In the first appeal, we determined that the trial court erred in classifying several significant assets and remanded the case back to the trial court. Following a hearing on remand, the trial court re-divided the marital estate and awarded Wife both alimony in futuro and alimony in solido. Husband appeals. Discerning no error, we affirm.

A Hardeman County jury convicted the defendant, Randy Jackson, of indecent exposure in a penal institution, for which he received six years in confinement at 60%. On appeal, the defendant contends the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support his conviction. After reviewing the record and considering the applicable law, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The trial court terminated a mother’s parental rights to her two minor children after finding clear and convincing evidence that the conditions that led to the children’s removal persist, that the mother failed to manifest an ability to assume custody of the children, and that termination of the mother’s parental rights was in the best interests of the children. The mother appeals. Upon diligent review of the record, we find no error and affirm the judgment of the trial court.

In the spring of 2023, The Metro Nashville Police Department (“Metro”) received several public records requests seeking information about a school shooting that occurred in a Nashville private school on March 27, 2023. Metro denied all such requests. The various requestors filed petitions for access to the records in the Davidson County courts, which were eventually consolidated into one action. The private school at which the shooting occurred, its affiliated church, and parents of surviving children intervened in the action as parties. These intervening parties advocated that the school shooter’s personal writings and other creative works, which Metro collected in the course of its investigation, should remain confidential. The trial court ultimately denied all petitions for access to Metro’s file for numerous reasons. The requestors appeal to this Court. Following our review, we affirm in part and reverse in part. We affirm the trial court’s finding that the intervening parents have standing to raise arguments under the United States Copyright Act. We also affirm the trial court’s finding that neither Article I, section 35 of the Tennessee Constitution, nor Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-38-102, bar disclosure of any public records in this case. On all other issues, we reverse the trial court. The case is remanded to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

This matter is before the Court upon the application of the Petitioner, Henry Lee Jones, for an extraordinary appeal pursuant to Tennessee Rule of Appellate Procedure 10. The Petitioner seeks review of the trial court’s order denying his motion to disqualify the Attorney General’s Office from representing the State in his capital post-conviction proceeding. The Petitioner raises numerous constitutional and statutory challenges to 2023 Tenn. Pub. Acts ch. 182 (“the Act”), which gives the Attorney General “exclusive control over the state’s defense of the request for collateral review” in capital cases. The State has responded in opposition to the application, arguing that the Petitioner lacks standing to challenge the Act and, alternatively, that the Petitioner has failed to establish that this case merits extraordinary review. For the reasons set forth below, the Petitioner’s application is hereby denied.

In 2023, the Defendant, Teresa Shinpaugh, pleaded guilty to one count of criminally negligent homicide and one count of aggravated neglect of an elderly or vulnerable adult, in exchange for the dismissal of the remaining counts of her indictment and pursuant to the agreement that the trial court would determine the length and manner of service of her sentence. After a hearing, the trial court sentenced the Defendant to concurrent sentences of two and eight years with one year to serve in confinement and the remainder to be served on probation. On appeal, the Defendant asserts that the trial court erred when it sentenced her to one year of confinement. After a review of the record and applicable law, we affirm the trial court’s judgments.

Husband and Wife divorced. In ruling upon contested matters, the trial court adopted a parenting plan submitted by Husband with minor modifications, named Husband primary residential parent of the parties’ minor children, and granted Husband primary custody of his stepson. The trial court ordered Wife to pay child support and declined to grant her alimony. The court also categorized and distributed the parties’ marital property. The court denied Wife’s request to hold Husband in contempt for purportedly interfering with her parenting time. Because the parties agree there was error as to Wife’s income for purposes of the child support calculation and agree as to the number that should have been used for her income, we modify the trial court’s award of child support accordingly. We also conclude that the trial court erred in failing to value the marital property and to apply the statutory factors and make relevant findings in connection with dividing the marital estate. We conclude that the issue of primary custody over Husband’s stepson, who was nearly 18 at the time of argument in this case, is moot. We affirm as to the other issues presented in this appeal.

A landslide led neighboring property owners to jointly file suit against Metro Water Services. Further investigation complicated their understanding of what may have caused the landslide, resulting in withdrawal of their shared counsel and in one property owner bringing suit against the other while still maintaining the action against Metro Water Services. While all three parties engaged in a variety of settlement-related actions, the suit filed by one property owner against the other sat largely dormant. This sparked a motion to dismiss for failure to prosecute. The trial court held the motion in abeyance. While the settlement-related matters became ever more mired, the case did not move forward. Fifteen months later, the trial court granted the motion to dismiss for failure to prosecute and awarded attorney’s fees. Because we are unable to determine the trial court’s basis for the award of attorney’s fees from its order, we vacate that portion of the judgment and remand for further findings. Otherwise, we affirm.

This appeal arises from Mother’s petition to modify the parties’ parenting plan and request that Father be held in contempt for failure to pay child support. After a hearing, the trial court entered an order generally finding that the parties simply had two different parenting styles and denying Mother’s request to modify the parenting plan. The trial court also found that the contempt matter had been addressed, but the trial court’s order lacked any findings of fact or conclusions of law concerning the alleged contempt. After review, we reverse the trial court’s determination that Mother had not proven a material change in circumstances to permit modification of the parenting plan. To that end, the matter is remanded for the trial court to conduct an analysis of whether a change in the parties’ parenting plan is in the children’s best interest pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated section 36-6-106(a). Further, we vacate the trial court’s order as it relates to the civil contempt action against Father. That matter is remanded as well for additional findings and conclusions related to Father’s civil contempt.

While unclear from the record, which does not include the relevant documentation, the Petitioner, Kavaughn Jones, states that he pleaded guilty in 2022 to two counts of attempted rape and one count of attempted aggravated sexual battery, and that the trial court sentenced him to eight years to be served at 45%. In January 2025, the Petitioner filed a petition for post-conviction relief, in which he alleged that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate his case. The post-conviction court summarily dismissed the petition as time-barred. The Petitioner appeals. After review, we affirm the post-conviction court’s judgment.

The Petitioner, Craig Taylor, appeals the denial of post-conviction relief from his Madison County convictions for first degree premeditated murder, attempted aggravated burglary, two counts of first degree felony murder, and two counts of attempted aggravated robbery, for which he received a total effective sentence of life plus eight years. The Petitioner contends that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel based upon trial counsel’s failure to call expert witnesses to rebut the State’s experts. After review, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

In this complex suit over a breach of a contract to sell real estate, the trial court dismissed one of the plaintiffs in an order certified as final under Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure 54.02, but it reinstated that plaintiff two years later. The court awarded the plaintiff-buyers specific performance, one of the limited available remedies under the contract. However, because the seller had meanwhile taken actions that may have made this relief impossible, the trial court also noted it would consider civil contempt in the event the seller would not perform, and would award approximately $12.2 million in damages, which was the measure of harm for the dismissed plaintiff party. The seller appeals. We conclude that the trial court erred in reinstating the party and that the proper method to challenge an improvidently granted 54.02 final judgment is appeal or an appropriate post-judgment motion. We also conclude that, although the party was erroneously reinstated, the seller is not entitled to a new trial on the issue of liability. Additionally, the trial court did not err in its determination that the seller committed the first material breach and did not err in awarding specific performance. This court cannot review a future and speculative contempt judgment, and we vacate the portion of the judgment delineating any future contempt award. We remand for consideration of whether the buyer is entitled to attorney’s fees on appeal under the contract.

The present case is Husband’s second appeal in relation to the parties’ divorce. In the first
appeal, this court modified the trial court’s valuation of the marital residence but otherwise
affirmed the trial court’s judgment. Husband, subsequently, sought additional
modifications of the judgment in relation to the marital residence, which the trial court
denied. Husband appeals. We affirm.

This is an appeal from an order reforming a deed to correct the legal description of the
property. Because the appellant did not file his notice of appeal with the clerk of the
appellate court within thirty days after entry of the final judgment as required by Tennessee
Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a), we dismiss the appeal.

Petitioner, Shamarion Bown, appeals the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief, arguing that the post-conviction court erred in concluding that Petitioner received the effective assistance of counsel. Petitioner alleges that trial counsel failed to adequately review discovery materials and offer an honest assessment about the strengths and weaknesses of Petitioner’s case. Petitioner contends that because of counsel’s alleged deficient performance he did not fully understand the nature and consequences of his guilty plea. After review, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

The Petitioner, Guy A. Cobb, appeals the McMinn County Criminal Court’s denial of his
post-conviction petition, seeking relief from his guilty plea to possession of fentanyl with
intent to sell or deliver and the resulting three-year sentence. On appeal, he claims that he
received the ineffective assistance of counsel. Based on our review, we affirm the postconviction
court’s denial of the petition.

The Defendant, Kenyon Demario Reynolds, appeals from the judgment of the Knox County Criminal Court denying his motion to correct an illegal sentence. The Defendant argues that the trial court erred by summarily ordering a corrected judgment instead of holding a new sentencing hearing to resentence him to a legal sentence. Because the Defendant fails to state a colorable claim for Rule 36.1 relief, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Defendant, Christian Sanderson, pled guilty in two separate cases to four counts of attempted aggravated sexual battery. As part of the negotiated agreement, Defendant agreed to a five- to six-year sentence of incarceration on each count, with the trial court to determine whether to impose consecutive sentences. The trial court ordered Defendant to serve four consecutive six-year sentences, for an effective sentence of twenty-four years. On appeal, Defendant argues that the trial court abused its discretion by ordering complete consecutive sentencing. Following a review of the entire record, the briefs and arguments of the parties, and the applicable law, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

Lawrence Darrell Patton, Defendant, claims that the trial court erred by ordering him to serve the balance of his sentence in confinement following the revocation of his probation. Defendant also claims that the trial court erred in partially denying his Rule 36 motion seeking pretrial jail credits. Following a thorough review of the record and applicable law, we affirm the revocation of Defendant’s probation and the trial court’s award of pretrial jail credits. We reverse the trial court’s judgment requiring Defendant to serve the balance of his sentence in confinement and remand for a new sentencing hearing.

In this interlocutory appeal, the State asks this court to review the trial court’s order granting Defendant’s motion for new trial. After reviewing the entire record, the briefs and oral arguments of the parties, and the applicable law, we reverse the trial court’s order.

In 2015, a Knox County jury convicted the Petitioner, Jabriel Linzy, of first-degree murder,
attempted first-degree murder, and employment of a firearm during the commission of a
dangerous felony. The trial court sentenced him to life in prison for the first degree murder
conviction, fifteen years for the attempted first degree murder conviction, and six years for
the conviction of employing a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony. The
trial court ordered that the two shorter sentences be served consecutively to each other but
concurrently with the life sentence. The Petitioner appealed his convictions, and this court
affirmed. State v. Linzy, No. E2016-01052-CCA-R3-CD, 2017 WL 3575871, at *1 (Tenn.
Crim. App. Aug. 18, 2017), perm. app. denied (Tenn. Nov. 16, 2017). The Petitioner filed
a petition for post-conviction relief. After a hearing, the post-conviction court granted
post-conviction relief, concluding that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to
inadmissible social media evidence in conjunction with not eliciting testimony about the
Petitioner’s prior conflict with the victim and that trial counsel’s performance prejudiced
the Petitioner. On appeal, the State contends that the post-conviction court erred because
trial counsel made a reasonable strategic decision when failing to object to the social media
evidence and because the Petitioner cannot show that trial counsel’s performance
prejudiced him. After review, we affirm the post-conviction court’s judgment.

A Knox County jury convicted the Petitioner, Jacquiz McBee, of first-degree murder, and
the trial court sentenced him to life in prison to be served consecutively to his prior threeyear
sentence for aggravated assault. The Petitioner appealed his conviction and sentence,
and this court affirmed both. State v. McBee, No. E2021-01048-CCA-R3-CD, 2022 WL
16833562, at *1 (Tenn. Crim. App. Nov. 9, 2022), perm. app. denied (Tenn. Mar. 9, 2023).
The Petitioner filed a petition pursuant to the Post-Conviction DNA Analysis Act asking
that evidence in his case be tested for DNA and undergo fingerprint analysis. The postconviction
court summarily dismissed the petition. The Petitioner appeals, maintaining
that the trial court abused its discretion when it denied his petition for fingerprint and DNA
analysis of evidence in his case. After review, we affirm the post-conviction court’s
judgment.