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Posted by: Tanja Trezise on May 17, 2021

Aggrieved of her Sullivan County Criminal Court jury conviction of making a false report, see T.C.A. § 39-16-502, the defendant, Kelly Brooke Frye, appeals. The defendant challenges the sufficiency of the convicting evidence and the propriety of the sentence originally imposed as well as the trial court’s denial of her motion, filed pursuant to Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 35, to reduce her sentence. She also alleges that she was deprived of her constitutional rights to a public trial, to trial by an impartial jury, and to the effective assistance of counsel at trial. Discerning no error, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Posted by: Tanja Trezise on May 17, 2021

Week of May 10, 2021 - May 14, 2021

Posted by: Tanja Trezise on Apr 30, 2021

The Defendant, Desiree Petty, pleaded guilty to burning personal property or land, facilitation to commit felony arson, and multiple misdemeanor offenses. The trial court sentenced her to four years of incarceration, suspended in lieu of service of twelve years of probation, and $150 monthly restitution payments. In 2010, the trial court found that she had violated her probation and extended her probation for two years. In October 2019, the trial court issued a probation violation warrant based on allegations that she had failed to appear, failed a drug screen, and missed monthly restitution payments. At a hearing, the Defendant conceded that she failed the drug test. The trial court then, sua sponte, revisited the Defendant’s restitution and ordered her to pay an increased amount of monthly restitution. It also revoked her probation, required her to serve ninety days in jail, and returned her to probation, adding an additional year. The Defendant appeals. After review, we affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand the trial court’s judgment.

Posted by: Tanja Trezise on Apr 30, 2021

The Appellant, Tharcisse John Nkurunziza, pled guilty in the Knox County Criminal Court to vehicular assault, a Class D felony, with the trial court to determine the length and manner of service of the sentence. After a sentencing hearing, the trial court sentenced him as a Range I, standard offender to four years to be served as ten months in jail followed by supervised probation. On appeal, the Appellant claims that his sentence is excessive because the trial court misapplied enhancement factors and that the trial court erred by denying his request for full probation. The State acknowledges that the trial court misapplied two of the three enhancement factors but contends that the record justifies the sentence. Based upon the oral arguments, the record, and the parties’ briefs, we agree with the State and affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Posted by: Tanja Trezise on Apr 30, 2021

The Petitioner, Charles D. Johnson, filed for habeas corpus relief from his convictions of felony murder and especially aggravated robbery and the accompanying total effective sentence of life without the possibility of parole plus twenty-five years. The Petitioner alleges that the judgments are void because he was never indicted for the offenses of which he was convicted and that the trial court, therefore, did not have jurisdiction to try him or enter any judgment in his case. The habeas corpus court denied the petition, and the Petitioner appeals. Upon review, we affirm the judgment of the habeas corpus court.

Posted by: Tanja Trezise on Apr 30, 2021

This case involves a post-divorce action, in which the father filed a petition for contempt against the mother, alleging that the mother failed to pay her portion of the child’s medical expenses pursuant to the permanent parenting plan. The Trial Court denied the father’s request that the mother be held in contempt but awarded the father a judgment for the mother’s portion of the child’s medical expenses. The Trial Court declined to award attorney’s fees to the father and ordered that the mother be permitted to make installment payments to the father. We vacate the Trial Court’s order permitting the installment payments as being premature. We further modify the judgment against Mother to $38,759.11 upon our determination that the amount paid by the father to Mountain Management and Denials Management was only $1,781.76. We affirm the Trial Court’s judgment in all other aspects.

Posted by: Tanja Trezise on Apr 30, 2021

The plaintiff appeals from an order dismissing two of the defendants. Because the order does not resolve all of the claims between all of the parties, we dismiss the appeal for lack of a final judgment.

Posted by: Tanja Trezise on Apr 30, 2021

This is a consolidated appeal from judgments entered upon two post-divorce petitions filed by the mother, seeking to modify the parties’ permanent parenting plan to require the father to pay an upward deviation in child support to fund private school tuition at Baylor School in Chattanooga (“Baylor”), first for the parties’ eldest of three children in one petition and then for the parties’ middle child in the second petition. The father filed an answer objecting to the expense of Baylor tuition given the parties’ respective financial situations. He also filed a counter-petition alleging that the mother had violated the joint decision-making provision in the permanent parenting plan by unilaterally enrolling the eldest child at Baylor. Although both parties sought essentially equal coparenting time, the father also requested modification of the permanent parenting plan to designate him as the primary residential parent. Each party requested sole educational decision-making authority. Following a bench trial as to the first petition, the trial court, inter alia, approved the parties’ stipulation that a material change in circumstance had occurred since entry of the prior order; maintained the mother as the primary residential parent; maintained joint decision-making authority; found that although the mother had unilaterally enrolled the eldest child at Baylor, it was in the child’s best interest to remain at the school; and found that an upward deviation in the father’s child support obligation was appropriate to fund sixty percent of the Baylor tuition for the eldest child. During a subsequent bench trial on the mother’s second petition, the Baylor financial aid director, who had testified during the first trial concerning typical financial aid awards, testified that neither of the children at issue had been awarded financial aid for the upcoming year. The trial court sua sponte amended its prior order to reduce the upward deviation in the father’s child support obligation to fifty percent of the Baylor tuition for the eldest child and to eliminate the father’s responsibility for any extracurricular expenses at Baylor. The trial court entered a separate judgment dismissing the mother’s petition as to the middle child but including a provision that the mother would be allowed to enroll the middle child at Baylor or another private school provided that the father was not responsible for any portion of the tuition. The trial court incorporated its rulings into a modified permanent parenting plan that included a prohibition against enrollment of the third child in private school absent agreement of the parties or a subsequent court order. The father has appealed both judgments. Having determined that the upward deviation in child support for the eldest child should be capped at no more than fifty percent of the 2020-2021 Baylor tuition amount testified to at the time of trial, we modify the deviation to equal the lesser of (a) $13,200.00 annually or (b) fifty percent of the current annual Baylor tuition each year for the eldest child after deduction of proceeds from scholarships, grants, stipends, or other cost-reducing programs received by or on behalf of the child. We affirm the trial court’s judgments in all other respects and deny the father’s request for attorney’s fees on appeal.

Posted by: Tanja Trezise on Apr 30, 2021

BERNICE BOUIE DONALD, Circuit Judge. Plaintiff Wendi Thomas (“Plaintiff”), a well-known media figure in Memphis, alleges that the City of Memphis (“the City” or “Defendant”) excluded her from the City’s Media Advisory List in retaliation for her news coverage of Mayor Jim Strickland. Plaintiff filed suit against the City, seeking injunctive and declaratory relief based on her claims that the City’s actions amounted to violations of the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 19 of the Tennessee Constitution. Thirteen days after Plaintiff filed suit, the City changed its media relations policy so that all media advisories would be posted on the City’s website or on designated social media.

The City moved for dismissal, and, finding that the City’s actions mooted Plaintiff’s claims, the district court granted that motion. For the following reasons, we AFFIRM the district court.

Posted by: Tanja Trezise on Apr 30, 2021

MURPHY, Circuit Judge. After a lengthy investigation, the federal government uncovered substantial evidence that Dwayne Sheckles was a Louisville distributor for a large drug-trafficking ring. Sheckles pleaded guilty but reserved the right to appeal the district court’s refusal to suppress much of this evidence. His appeal raises many Fourth Amendment questions. To name a few: What type of evidence creates probable cause to obtain a warrant for a phone’s location data after Carpenter v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 2206 (2018)? Did a sufficient “nexus” exist between Sheckles’s drug dealing and two apartments to justify search warrants for the apartments? Did officers lawfully stop Sheckles’s vehicle after he left one of these apartments while they were in the process of seeking the warrants? And does a third party’s lack of apparent authority to consent to a search make a difference if officers learn after the search that the party had actual authority to consent? Ultimately, we find no Fourth Amendment violations and thus affirm.


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