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State v. Adams12/20/1999
for the offenses." The trial judge acknowledged this testimony and dismissed its applicability, stating,
Whatever mitigation that the jury wanted to give Mr. Adams, they gave him with regard to the murder second instead of the attempted murder first. I think the testimony from all the witnesses is that it is more of a personality disorder from Mr. Adams than anything else. Therefore, I don't find any mitigating factors.
In her sentencing order, the trial judge stated, "Proof was presented by the defendant to show that the defendant had a personality disorder and was paranoid. However, the defendant was not psychotic." We believe the trial court properly considered this testimony and disregarded it after considering the credibility of the witnesses and the weight of the evidence. Therefore, having found that the trial court properly applied five enhancement factors and no mitigating factors after considering the principles of sentencing, we uphold the Defendant's sentence of twenty years as a Range II offender for the second degree murder conviction.
In sentencing the Defendant to the maximum sentence of fifteen years for each of the aggravated assault convictions, the trial court found no mitigating factors and the following enhancement factors:
(1) The defendant has a previous history of criminal convictions or criminal behavior in addition to those necessary to establish the appropriate range;
(11) The felony resulted in death or bodily injury or involved the threat of death or bodily injury to another person and the defendant has previously been convicted of a felony that resulted in death or bodily injury; . . . . See Tenn. Code Ann. ยง 40-35-114.
The Defendant challenges the application of factor (11), evidently because of the manner in which the prior felony conviction was introduced into the record. Prior to the sentencing hearing, the Defendant stipulated to his extensive criminal record. One prior felony conviction was for aggravated assault, and the State sought to use that conviction to enhance the Defendant's sentence under factor (11). When the Defendant argued that the factor was inapplicable because there was no proof that the aggravated assault resulted in death or bodily injury , the State provided the case number for that conviction and requested that the case be provided to the court for clarification. The case file was brought to the court, and it revealed that the Defendant was indicted in May of 1992 for aggravated assault in that he "intentionally, knowingly , or recklessly did cause bodily injury to Linda Lewis by the use of a deadly weapon," which was a beer bottle. The Defendant pled guilty to the charges in the indictment. The trial court found that the indictment "speaks for itself" and filed it and the judgment as an exhibit to the record. We believe it was proper for the trial court to allow the introduction of this evidence at the sentencing hearing. This evidence clearly shows that the Defendant was previously convicted of a felony that resulted in bodily injury, so factor (11) was properly applied to enhance the Defendant's sentence.
Though the trial court applied only two enhancement factors to the aggravated assault convictions, it also specifically stated in its sentencing order that it gave great weight to enhancement factors (1) and (11) in all of the convictions, and those are the two factors applied here. We believe the trial court acted within its discretionary authority in imposing the maximum sentence in the applicable range for both aggravated assault convictions after considering the sentencing principles and the applicable enhancement and mitigating factors; therefore we uphold the s
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