STATE OF TENNESSEE v. PEDRO IGNACIO HERNANDEZ - Articles

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STATE OF TENNESSEE v. PEDRO IGNACIO HERNANDEZ

Posted by: Tanja Trezise on Jul 29, 2014

Court: TN Court of Criminal Appeals

Attorneys 1:

Jeffrey A. DeVasher (on appeal); and Aimee Solway and Randi Hess (at trial), Assistant District Public Defenders, for the appellant, Pedro Ignacio Hernandez.

Attorneys 2:

Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter; Clark B. Thornton, Assistant Attorney General; Victor S. Johnson, III, District Attorney General; and Kristen Menke and Roger Moore, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

Judge(s): WITT

The defendant, Pedro Ignacio Hernandez, appeals from his Davidson County Criminal Court jury convictions of three counts of rape of a child, one count of attempted rape of a child, and five counts of aggravated sexual battery, claiming that the trial court erred by deeming him competent to stand trial; that the trial court erred by denying a motion to suppress his pretrial statement to police; that the trial court erred by denying a motion to suppress the results of DNA testing conducted using DNA that was unconstitutionally obtained; that the trial court erred by allowing the State to present evidence that the defendant displayed a photograph of his genitalia to the victim; that the evidence was insufficient to support two of the defendant’s convictions of rape of a child; that dual convictions of rape of a child in count one and aggravated sexual battery in count twelve were prohibited by principles of due process; and that the trial court erred by imposing consecutive sentences and by sentencing the defendant as a Range II offender. Because the trial court erroneously imposed a Range II sentence for the defendant’s convictions of rape of a child in violation of constitutional ex post facto protections, the sentence for each conviction of rape of a child is modified from a sentence of 28 years to a sentence of 25 years. The judgments of the trial court are affirmed in all other respects.

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