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State v. Shelton2/12/2003
FACTS
The defendant was declared to be a motor vehicle habitual offender on November 9, 1990; and, on January 25, 2001, he was ticketed after running a red light with the vehicle he was operating. Subsequently, he was indicted for violating Tennessee Code Annotated section 55-10-616. He entered a plea of guilty to this offense and was sentenced to one day in jail and a one dollar fine.
ANALYSIS
I. Sentencing
The motor vehicle habitual offender ("MVHO") statute provides as follows:
Driving while restriction in effect - Class E felony.
(a) It is unlawful for any person to operate any motor vehicle in this state while the judgment or order of the court prohibiting the operation remains in effect.
(b) Any person found to be an habitual offender under the provisions of this part who thereafter is convicted of operating a motor vehicle in this state while the judgment or order of the court prohibiting such operation is in effect commits a Class E felony.
(c) The court has no power to suspend any such sentence or fine, except that in cases where such operation is necessitated in situations of apparent extreme emergency which require such operation to save life or limb, the sentence or any part thereof or fine or any part thereof may be suspended by the court, in its discretion. Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-10-616 (1998).
Thus, operation of a vehicle by a person previously declared to be an habitual offender is punishable as a Class E felony, the punishment for which is set out in Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-112(a)(5) as "not less than one (1) nor more than two (2) years." The State timely appealed the sentence, arguing that, because the defendant had pled guilty to a Class E felony, the minimum sentence was one year. The defendant responds that the State cannot appeal the sentence because its claim is not within the enumerated bases for a State's appeal, as set out in Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-402:
(a) The district attorney general in a criminal case may appeal from the length, range or manner of the service of the sentence imposed by the sentencing court. The district attorney general may also appeal the imposition of concurrent sentences. In addition, the district attorney general may also appeal the amount of fines and restitution imposed by the sentencing court. An appeal pursuant to this section shall be taken within the same time and in the same manner as other appeals in criminal cases. The right of the appeal of the state is independent of the defendant's right of appeal.
(b) An appeal from a sentence is limited to one (1) or more of the following conditions:
(1) The court improperly sentenced the defendant to the wrong sentence range;
(2) The court granted all or part of the sentence on probation;
(3) The court ordered all or part of the sentences to run concurrently;
(4) The court improperly found the defendant to be an especially mitigated offender;
(5) The enhancement and mitigating factors were not weighed properly;
(6) The court failed to impose the fines recommended by the jury; or
(7) The court failed to order the defendant to make reasonable restitution.
As we understand the State's argument on appeal, the trial court improperly sentenced the defendant, a one-day sentence being available only "if the trial court suspended the defendant's sentence nearly in its entirety." According to the State, the minimum to which the defendant could be sentenced was one year, that being the minimum punishment for a motor vehicle
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