The appellant, Tyler Alexis Denton, pled guilty in the Lincoln County Circuit Court to three counts of selling less than one-half gram of cocaine within a drug-free zone and three counts of delivering less than one-half gram of cocaine within a drug-free zone, Class C felonies. The trial court merged each count of delivering cocaine into its corresponding count of selling cocaine and sentenced the appellant to three, concurrent sentences of five and one-half years. On appeal, the appellant contends that the length of his sentences is excessive.

Gdongalay P. Berry (?the Petitioner?) was convicted of two of counts of first-degree premeditated murder, two counts of first-degree felony murder, two of counts especially aggravated kidnapping, and two of counts especially aggravated robbery in connection with the deaths of D‘angelo McKinley Lee and Gregory Lanier Ewing.1 In this coram nobis proceeding, the Petitioner claims that a previously undisclosed videotaped interview of Yakou Murphy might have led to a different result had that interview been disclosed prior to trial. After a hearing, the coram nobis court denied relief.

Plaintiffs in the sweeping sexual assault suit against the University of Tennessee today filed a motion explaining why they believe the suit should move forward, The Tennessean reports. The plaintiffs again stated that the university has a policy of disregarding “obvious and known risk of sexual assaults, especially by male athletes, both on and off UT's campus.” Their latest filing is in response to UT’s motion earlier this month to dismiss the suit. Judge Aleta Trauger has not decided if the lawsuit will be moved to Knoxville, as UT has requested.

Attorneys for TV personality Erin Andrews asked in a new filing that Nashville Circuit Judge Hamilton Gayden require the owners of a Nashville hotel and its management company to award Andrews the full $55 million awarded to her earlier this month. The attorneys say the companies should not split the payment with Michael David Barrett, the man who secretly recorded nude videos of Andrews at the hotel. The Tennessean reports jurors held that Barrett was 51 percent responsible, and that the hotel owner and operator 49 percent responsible for the harm Andrews suffered.

The Tennessee Supreme Court today upheld a decision by the Tennessee Department of Revenue to impose a tax variance on the parent company of Verizon Wireless and ruled the Commissioner of Revenue was within his authority to impose the variance. The lawsuit, filed in 2007 by Vodafone Americas Holdings Inc. and its subsidiaries, asked Tennessee to refund nearly all state franchise and excise taxes it had paid from 2002-2006. The company claimed the apportionment formula in Tennessee’s franchise and excise tax has been incorrectly applied. The Commissioner of Revenue then decided to impose on Vodafone a tax variance that required the company to pay franchise and excise taxes by a formula that varied from the standard apportionment formula in Tennessee’s tax statutes. The trial court and the Court of Appeals both upheld the Commissioner’s decision to issue the tax variance. Read the majority opinion in Vodafone Americas Holdings, Inc. v. Reagan Farr, authored by Justice Holly Kirby, and the dissent by Justice Jeffrey S. Bivins.

In this appeal, we review a tax variance. The Commissioner of Tennessee‘s Department of Revenue determined that, if the standard apportionment formula in Tennessee‘s franchise and excise tax statutes were applied to the appellant taxpayer, a multistate wireless telecommunications company, nearly all of the taxpayer‘s sales receipts for services to its Tennessee customers—over a billion dollars in receipts—would not be subject to Tennessee franchise and excise taxes.

The Hamilton County School Board has hired attorney Courtney Bullard, a partner at Spears, Moore, Rebman and Williams PC, to conduct an investigation at Ooltewah High School into the alleged rape of a student by three basketball teammates. The Times Free Press reports the Office of Civil Rights requires school systems to conduct investigations after incidents such as those that happened at Ooltewah.

Former court bailiff Meredith Driskell testified yesterday that Former Knox County Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner appeared to “nod off” during the January 2010 trial of Raynella Dossett Leath. The Knoxville News Sentinel reports attorneys Rebecca Legrand and Joshua Hedrick, who represent Leath, are attempting to win Leath a new trial and claim Baumgartner robbed her of a constitutionally sound trial. Baumgartner was later sentenced to prison for lying to cover up a drug conspiracy in which he was buying pills. 

The Knoxville News Sentinel reports a new trial date has been set for Aug. 2 for former Knox County Schools security officer Kevin Waggoner, who is accused in a 2013 deadly shooting. Attorneys Tommy Hindman and Scott Lanzon will represent Waggoner; the pair previously represented Waggoner when a judge last year declared a mistrial due to a deadlocked jury. Waggoner is accused of shooting his neighbor in Union County following a three-year feud.

Knoxville attorney Hoyt Gene Bell died Monday (March 21) at age 78, according to the Knoxville Bar Association. Following his graduation from the Tennessee School for the Blind in Donelson and the University of Tennessee College of Law, Bell practiced law for 53 years. He was chairman of the Knox County Election Commission from 1979 to 1991. The family will receive friends tomorrow from 5-7 p.m. at Dante Baptist Church, 314 Brown Dr. SW in Knoxville. Funeral services will follow at 7 p.m. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Dante Baptist Church building fund, American Cancer Society or Young-Williams Animal Shelter.