State of Tennessee v. Rhonda Patricia Mayes

Defendant was convicted of two counts of possession of cocaine with intent to sell and two counts of simple possession of cocaine. The trial court merged the two counts of possession of cocaine with intent to sell into one count and merged the two counts of simple possession of cocaine into one count. The trial court sentenced the defendant to concurrent sentences of eight years and eleven months and twenty-nine days, respectively, thus imposing an effective eight-year sentence. Defendant appealed on four grounds: (1) there was insufficient evidence to support the conviction for possession with intent to sell cocaine; (2) a search warrant failed to state sufficient facts to establish probable cause to search defendant's apartment; (3) the indictment was multiplicitous; and (4) the trial court erred in ruling that the State could use defendant's prior conviction to show intent. We conclude that all convictions should merge into a single judgment of conviction for possession of cocaine with intent to sell; thus, we vacate the sentence relating to simple possession of cocaine, although this will not change the effective eight-year sentence.