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State v. Brown12/15/2000
The Defendant, Nicholas Roberts Brown, pleaded guilty to one count of statutory rape. Pursuant to his plea agreement, he received a sentence of one year, with the manner of service of the sentence to be determined by the trial court. After a sentencing hearing, the Defendant was ordered to serve sixty days in jail, with the remainder of his sentence to be served in community corrections. In this appeal as of right, the Defendant argues that he should have been placed on immediate probation. We hold that the Defendant failed to establish his suitability for full probation, but we modify the his sentence to sixty days incarceration followed by supervised probation because the Defendant is statutorily ineligible to participate in the community corrections program. The case is remanded for the trial court to determine the conditions of probation.
Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Circuit Court Modified and Case Remanded.
David H. Welles, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which John Everett Williams, J. and William B. Acree, Sp .J., joined.
OPINION
The charges in this case arose from the nineteen-year-old Defendant's consensual sexual relationship with a fourteen-year-old girl, J.R. At the Defendant's plea hearing, the State recited the following facts underlying the offense:
ometime back in 1998 this defendant . . . was having problems with his home life, he was allowed to move into the [victim's] home. The father explained to him that a fourteen year old, his fourteen year old daughter also lived there and told him under no certain terms that he should leave her alone and he didn't expect anything untoward to come of him staying in the home because they wanted to give him a place to stay.
Despite those warnings, if the Court please, this defendant, the proof would show, began having sexual relations with her. This defendant was nineteen years of age and was fourteen years of age and they had sexual relations several times for months after that until finally it was able to be put a stop to. She's presently pregnant and due in August with his baby.
By the time of the sentencing hearing, J.R. had given birth to a boy, who was nine weeks old.
J.R.'s father, Curtis Rumbaugh, testified at the sentencing hearing that the Defendant was a "friend of the family," and he had told the Defendant that the Defendant and J.R. "could be friends but that was as far as they could go." Mr. Rumbaugh discovered that J.R. and the Defendant had had sexual intercourse when J.R. ran away from home because she was pregnant. Mr. Rumbaugh further testified that the Defendant had made no arrangements to help support the baby and that the Defendant denies that the baby is his.
J.R. testified that she had sexual relations with the Defendant on many occasions and that the Defendant knew she was only fourteen. She knew that the Defendant was nineteen. She said she is certain that the Defendant is the father of her baby, but the Defendant denies it. She further testified that she willingly engaged in sexual intercourse with the Defendant, and she was aware of the dangers of having unprotected sex. She also admitted sending the Defendant multiple letters, in which she expressed her love for the Defendant and her anger at her father for pursuing criminal charges against the Defendant.
The Defendant did not testify at the hearing, but relied upon the presentence report. The presentence report shows that the Defendant was nineteen years old at the time of the offense. The Defendant graduated from high school, where he was a "low average" student. At the time of sentencing, he was employed
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