[DOWNLOAD] "State V. Winfield" by In the Supreme Court of Tennessee at Knoxville # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: State V. Winfield
- Author : In the Supreme Court of Tennessee at Knoxville
- Release Date : January 20, 2000
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 57 KB
Description
This is an appeal from the Criminal Court for Hamilton County, which convicted the defendant of two counts of assault. The defendant appealed and argued that the trial court erred in imposing concurrent sentences of eleven months and twenty-nine days. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that two of the four sentencing enhancement factors applied by the trial court were improper but affirmed the sentencing after finding an enhancement factor that had not been applied by the trial court, i.e., that the defendant possessed or employed a deadly weapon during the offense. Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-114(9) (1997). The defendant appealed to this Court arguing that the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in imposing an enhancement factor based on facts underlying an offense, aggravated assault, of which the jury acquitted the defendant. We conclude that a court may apply an enhancement factor based on facts underlying an offense for which a defendant has been acquitted so long as the facts are established by a preponderance of the evidence. We also hold that the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in applying the enhancement factor in this case in the absence of specific factual findings made by the trial court. Finally, we nonetheless affirm the sentences based on the two remaining enhancement factors.