STATE OF TENNESSEE v. BRUCE D. MENDENHALL - Articles

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STATE OF TENNESSEE v. BRUCE D. MENDENHALL

Posted by: Karen Belcher on May 14, 2020

Court: TN Court of Criminal Appeals

Attorneys 1: Shelley T. Gardner, District Public Defender; Kelly A. Skeen, Assistant Public Defender (at trial and on appeal); and William K. (“Bill”) Cather, E. Marie Farley, and Lindsay N. Graham (at trial), Assistant District Public Defenders, for the appellant, Bruce D. Mendenhall.

Attorneys 2: Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Caitlin Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Tom P. Thompson, Jr., District Attorney General; and Brian W. Fuller and Jason L. Lawson, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

Judge(s): THOMAS

The Defendant, Bruce D. Mendenhall, was convicted by a jury of first degree premeditated murder and abuse of a corpse, for which he received sentences of life and two years, respectively. His sentences were ordered to be served consecutively to one another, as well as to two prior consecutive sentences from Davidson County of life imprisonment for murder and thirty years for three counts of solicitation to commit murder. On appeal, the Defendant challenges the following: (1) the trial court’s reliance on the doctrine of collateral estoppel to deny his various motions to suppress certain evidence, wherein he raised threshold constitutional issues; (2) the trial court’s denial of his motion to exclude 404(b) evidence and the failure to redact his police statement accordingly; (3) the trial court’s denial of his motion to continue based upon the State’s late disclosure of surveillance footage from the truck stop; (4) the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his convictions; and (5) the imposition of consecutive sentencing. After a thorough review of the record, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

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