Tennessee Criminal Lawyer Blog

Not surprisingly, defendants who are sentenced to jail time for offenses for which they have been found guilty frequently feel that the sentence was too harsh. While it often turns out that the sentence was reached fairly, there are also times where the sentence was indeed too harsh or was not arrived at properly at the trial court level, warranting a vacation of the sentence by the court of appeals. For this to happen, however, a defendant must know the proper way to appeal a sentence. Failure to include the appropriate items in the record for appellate review can all but ensure that the sentence will stand.

In a case styled State v. Scott that recently came before the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals, the defendant was challenging a sentence which included six months of jail time that he received after pleading guilty to vehicular assault and driving on a revoked license. The defendant’s basis for the appeal was that the trial judge erred in failing to grant him full probation. Unfortunately for the defendant, he failed to include a transcript of the guilty plea hearing, presentence report, and victim impact statements in the record for appeal. This prevented the court from conducting a de novo (meaning the sentence would be looked at with no presumption of correctness) review and instead forced the appellate court to view the sentence as though the trial court’s rulings were supported by sufficient evidence. This error pretty much killed the defendant’s chances for reversal in this case, as the appellate court was forced to presume the sentence was correct.

This case illustrates the crucial role that knowing the court system can play in a case. You can have the best appellate argument in the world and have it squashed by a failure to provide the appellate court with the appropriate documents that would allow that argument to be successful. To minimize the chances of making such a mistake on appeal, consult an experienced criminal defense attorney who knows the ins and outs of the appellate process.

Source: (State v. Scott, 35 TAM 15-36, 2/11/10, Knoxville, Ogle, 4 pages.)