APPELLATE COURT OPINIONS

The defendant, Leonel Lopez, also known as Leonel Lopez Ramos, was convicted by a Davidson County Criminal Court jury of second degree murder and sentenced to twenty years as a violent offender in the Department of Correction. On appeal, he argues that: (1) the evidence is insufficient to sustain his conviction, and (2) the service of a convicted felon as the grand jury foreman invalidated the indictment against him as a matter of law. After review, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The petitioner, Daniel Eduardo Gonzalez, appeals the dismissal of his petition for post-conviction relief as time-barred. He argues that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance for failing to advise him of the deportation consequences of his guilty plea as required by Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356 (2010), and that due process considerations should operate to toll the statute of limitations. Following our review, we affirm the summary dismissal of the petition.

This is a direct appeal of an attorney disciplinary proceeding involving six complaints of professional misconduct. The trial court affirmed the hearing panel’s decision that the attorney had violated multiple Rules of Professional Conduct and should be disbarred from the practice of law. After review of the evidence presented and the applicable law, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The defendant, Kevin Potter, appeals the Campbell County Criminal Court’s order revoking his probation and ordering him into confinement. Because the record supports the order, we affirm.

The Defendant, Cameron Cook, was convicted by a Knox County jury of attempted first degree murder and employing a firearm during an attempt to commit a dangerous felony for which he received an effective sentence of thirty years confinement. In this appeal, the Defendant argues that the evidence is insufficient to sustain either conviction and that the trial court erred in refusing to charge the jury on voluntary intoxication. Upon review, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

The Petitioner, Juan A. Hill, appeals as of right from the Johnson County Criminal Court’s summary dismissal of his petition for writ of habeas corpus. The Petitioner contends that his judgment of conviction is void because it fails to reflect pretrial jail credit. Following our review, we affirm the judgment of the habeas corpus court.

This is a termination of parental rights case in which the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services filed a petition to terminate the parental rights of Mother to the Child. Following a bench trial, the trial court found that clear and convincing evidence existed to support the termination of Mother’s parental rights on the statutory grounds of persistence of conditions and mental incompetence and that termination of her rights was in the Child’s best interest. Mother appeals. We affirm the decision of the trial court.

The petitioner, Kenneth J. Meyer, appeals the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief from his 2008 Bledsoe County Circuit Court conviction of voluntary manslaughter, claiming that he was denied the effective assistance of trial counsel. Discerning no error, we affirm.

A Shelby County jury found the Defendant, Larry McNutt, guilty of reckless endangerment and aggravated assault. The trial court merged the two convictions and ordered the Defendant to serve an effective fifteen-year sentence as a Career Offender. On appeal, the Defendant claims that: (1) the State solicited unfairly prejudicial testimony in violation of a pretrial ruling; (2) the trial court improperly admitted hearsay evidence; (3) the trial court improperly precluded the defense from cross-examining the victim about his desire not to prosecute the Defendant; (4) the trial court improperly admitted evidence of the defense witness’s prior convictions; (5) there is insufficient evidence to support the jury’s verdict; (6) his sentence is excessive; and (7) the cumulative effect of these errors violates his due process rights. After a thorough review of the record and applicable law, we affirm the trial court’s judgments and remand for correction of the reckless endangerment judgment form.

The petitioner, Derrick Rice, appeals the Shelby County Criminal Court’s summary dismissal of his petition for post-conviction relief as untimely filed. Upon our review, we reverse the decision of the post-conviction court and remand for proceedings consistent with the Post-Conviction Procedure Act.

George H. (“Father”) and Hollie H. (“Stepmother”) filed a petition seeking to terminate the parental rights of Wendy H. (“Mother”) to the minor children Jacob C. H. and Lillianna J. H. (“the Children”) and to allow Stepmother to adopt the Children. After a trial, the Trial Court entered its final order terminating Mother’s parental rights to the Children after finding and holding, inter alia, that clear and convincing evidence existed of grounds to terminate Mother’s parental rights to the Children pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 36-1-113(g)(1) and Tenn. Code Ann. § 36-1-102 for willful failure to visit and willful failure to support, and that clear and convincing evidence was proven that it was in the Children’s best interest for Mother’s parental rights to be terminated. Mother appeals the termination of her parental rights. We affirm the termination of Mother's parental rights to the Children.

The Defendant, William Avery McKnight, pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary and theft of property over $1000, with the trial court to determine the length and manner of the sentences. The trial court ordered the Defendant to serve an effective sentence of eight years in the Tennessee Department of Correction. The Defendant appeals, asserting that the trial court erred when it denied his request for alternative sentencing. After a thorough review of the record and applicable law, we affirm the trial court’s judgments.

In accordance with Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 51, this workers’ compensation appeal has been referred to the Special Workers’ Compensation Appeals Panel for a hearing and a report of findings of fact and conclusions of law. Employee suffered compensable injuries to his lower back and right shoulder. Employer asserted that the permanent disability award for employee’s injury should be capped at one and one half times his impairment rating because employee had voluntarily resigned. Following a bench trial the trial court found that the statutory cap of one and one half times did not apply to employee’s permanent partial disability benefits because employee’s retirement was reasonably related to his workplace injury and therefore he did not have a meaningful return to work. Based on an impairment rating of eleven percent the trial court awarded 35 percent permanent partial disability benefits. We find there was a meaningful return to work and accordingly we reverse the trial court judgment.

This appeal involves the weight that should be given to a motorist’s performance on field sobrietytests in determining whether probable cause existed to arrest the motorist for driving under the influence of an intoxicant (“DUI”). A law enforcement officer stopped a motorist who was driving in the wrong direction on a divided highway in Sevier County. Another officer administered several field sobriety tests, and arrested the motorist for DUI because the motorist had been driving in the wrong direction on a divided highway, smelled of alcohol, and admitted that he had been drinking. When the grand juryreturned a presentment charging the motorist with DUI and DUI per se, he filed a motion in the Circuit Court for Sevier County to suppress the evidence and to dismiss the charges. The trial court dismissed the charges on the ground that the officer lacked probable cause to arrest the motorist in light of his performance on the field sobriety tests. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. State v. Bell, No. E2011-01241-CCA-R3-CD, 2012 WL 3776695 (Tenn. Crim. App. Aug. 31, 2012). We granted the State’s Tenn. R. App. P. 11 application for permission to appeal and now hold that the officer had probable cause to arrest the motorist for DUI without a warrant. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals and the trial court, reinstate the charges, and remand to the trial court for further proceedings

Pursuant to Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 51, this workers’ compensation appeal has been referred to the Special Workers’ Compensation Appeals Panel for a hearing and a report of findings of fact and conclusions of law. The trial court found the employee suffered compensable injuries to his neck and back stemming from a motor vehicle accident and awarded him 54% permanent partial disability to the body as a whole. The employer has appealed, asserting the trial court’s award is excessive. Having carefully reviewed the record, we reverse the trial court’s judgment with respect to the impairment to the cervical spine and affirm in all other respects.

The Petitioner, Herschel V. Lillard, Jr., appeals the Davidson County Criminal Court’s denial of his petition for post-conviction relief from his 2010 conviction for first degree felony murder and resulting life sentence. The Petitioner contends that the trial court erred by denying him relief because he received the ineffective assistance of counsel. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The Defendant, Seymore S. Staten, was convicted by a Williamson County Circuit Court jury of reckless aggravated assault, a Class D felony. See T.C.A. § 39-13-102 (2010). He was sentenced as a Range I, standard offender to three years’ confinement to be served consecutively to a previously imposed eighty-seven-month federal sentence. On appeal, the Defendant contends that (1) the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction and (2) his right to a speedy trial was violated. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Jewell Wayne Smith, Jr. (“the Defendant”) entered a best interest plea to voluntary manslaughter. Following a sentencing hearing, the trial court sentenced the Defendant to thirteen years’ incarceration. The trial court ordered this sentence to run consecutively to a sentence the Defendant received for a probation violation. On appeal, the Defendant argues that the length of his sentence in this case is excessive. After a thorough review of the record and the applicable law, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The Defendant, Curtis Word, challenges the trial court’s sentence of incarceration, alleging that nothing in the record overcame the presumption that he was a favorable candidate for alternative sentencing and requesting that this court place him on probation or community corrections. Upon consideration of the applicable authorities and the record, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The defendant, Timothy Washington Lyons, appeals his resentencing to consecutive terms of fourteen years and six years for his convictions for attempted second degree murder and reckless aggravated assault. On appeal, the defendant argues that the trial court failed to make appropriate findings in support of its sentencing determinations. Based upon our review, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

For three separate indictments, the Defendant, Reuben Jacob Schutt, pled guilty to two counts of theft of property valued over $1,000, one count of evading arrest by motor vehicle, and one count of theft of property valued over $500. As part of the plea agreement, the parties agreed that the sentences for each offense would run concurrently, with the trial court to determine the length of the sentences and whether the Defendant should be given a Community Corrections sentence. The trial court denied the Defendant’s request for an alternative sentence and sentenced him to an effective sentence of ten years, to be served at 45% as a Range III, persistent offender. On appeal, the Defendant contends that the trial court erred when it denied his request for an alternative sentence. After a thorough review of the record, the briefs, and relevant authorities, we conclude no error exists. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s judgments.

The Defendant, Cory Austin Edison, challenges his jury conviction for aggravated robbery, a Class B felony, and his effective twenty-year sentence alleging prosecutorial misconduct in closing arguments; the admission of hearsay evidence without proper authentication at trial; and the improper imposition of consecutive sentencing. After reviewing the record and the relevant authorities, we conclude that the imposition of consecutive sentencing was not supported by the evidence and remand for a new sentencing hearing on that issue. The judgment of the trial court is, therefore, affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.

The defendant, Joey Walton, was convicted by a Shelby County Criminal Court jury of aggravated rape, a Class A felony; false imprisonment, a Class A misdemeanor; aggravated sexual battery, a Class B felony; and especially aggravated kidnapping, a Class A felony. The trial court merged the false imprisonment count into the aggravated rape count and sentenced the defendant as a violent offender to twenty-two years for the aggravated rape conviction, fifteen years for the especially aggravated kidnapping conviction, and twelve years for the aggravated sexual battery conviction. The court ordered that the aggravated rape and aggravated sexual battery sentences be served concurrently to each other but consecutively to the especially aggravated kidnapping sentence, for an effective sentence of thirty-seven years at 100% in the Department of Correction. The defendant raises three issues on appeal: (1) whether the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress his statement to police; (2) whether the trial court properly admitted a police officer’s testimony about his conversation with the defendant; and (3) whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain his convictions. Following our review, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

A jury convicted James Prindle (“the Defendant”) of aggravated sexual battery, aggravated child abuse, aggravated child neglect, and filing a false offense report. After a sentencing hearing, the trial court ordered the Defendant to serve an effective term of twenty-two years’ incarceration. In this direct appeal, the Defendant contends that (1) the trial court erred in admitting certain evidence; (2) the trial court’s jury charge was erroneous; (3) the evidence was not sufficient to support his convictions; (4) the trial court should have remanded the case to juvenile court; and (5) his sentence is excessive. Upon our thorough review of the record and applicable law, we reverse the Defendant’s conviction of aggravated child neglect for lack of sufficient evidence. We affirm the remaining judgments of the trial court.

The Petitioner, George Jones, contends that he received the ineffective assistance of counsel at trial, effectively depriving him of his constitutional right to counsel. Specifically, the Petitioner claims that trial counsel failed to do the following: investigate the facts of and adequately prepare for his case; prepare him for his trial testimony; and advise him of the potential consequences of his decision to testify. After a thorough review of the record and the applicable authorities, we discern no error and affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.