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IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE

AT NASHVILLE

Assigned on Briefs December 12, 2023

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. CHRISTOPHER LARON MATTHEWS

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Maury County

Nos. 27504, 27505, 27136 Stella L. Hargrove, Judge

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No. M2022-01170-CCA-R3-CD

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Christopher Laron Matthews, Defendant, appeals the trial court’s consecutive alignment of 

twelve-year sentences for sale of methamphetamine in Case No. 27504 and Case No. 27505

for an effective twenty-four-year sentence. The trial court based the consecutive 

sentencing on its finding that Defendant was an offender whose record of criminal activity 

was extensive. We affirm.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgments of the Circuit Court Affirmed

ROBERT L. HOLLOWAY, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which ROBERT H.

MONTGOMERY, JR., and J. ROSS DYER, JJ., joined.

E. Kendall White, IV, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Christopher Laron 

Matthews.

Jonathan Skrmetti, Attorney General and Reporter; Benjamin A. Ball, Senior Assistant 

Attorney General; Brent A. Cooper, District Attorney General; and Pamela S. Anderson, 

Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

On February 4, 2022, Defendant pleaded guilty as a Range II offender to sale of 

over 0.5 grams of methamphetamine in each of Counts 1 and 2 of Case No. 27504; sale of

over 0.5 grams of methamphetamine in Case No. 27505; and violation of the Tennessee 

Sex Offender Registry Act in Case No. 27136. Pursuant to a plea agreement, the trial court 

sentenced Defendant to concurrent terms of twelve years in Count 1 and Count 2 of Case 

No. 27504; a term of twelve years in Case No. 27505; and a term of four years in Case No. 

27136. The alignment of the sentences in the three cases would be determined following 

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a sentencing hearing. As part of the agreement, a charge of perjury in Case No. 27136 and 

seven drug-related offenses and a traffic violation in Case No. 27217 were dismissed.

The trial court held a sentencing hearing on July 29, 2022. The Presentence 

Investigation Report prepared by Jacob Silverthorn, a probation and parole manager with 

the Tennessee Department of Correction, was entered as Exhibit 1, and certified copies of 

five of Defendant’s prior convictions were entered as Exhibit 2. Officer Silverthorn 

detailed Defendant’s criminal record dating back to 1995 as shown in Exhibit 1, which 

included seven felony convictions: two for the sale of cocaine, one for the sale of 

marijuana, two for perjury, and one conviction each for violation of the sex offender 

registry and statutory rape. Defendant’s record also included eight misdemeanor 

convictions: three for possession of drugs, four for driving on a suspended license, and one 

for speeding. Officer Silverthorn testified that Defendant had five partial and two full 

probation revocations. 

Defendant made an allocution, explaining that he was selling drugs to pay for his 

addiction and that he “wasn’t out here trying to hurt nobody.” He claimed he wanted help 

for his addiction issue but was never offered treatment in spite of conveying his desire for 

treatment to his probation officer. He said he was a diabetic. He asked the court to align 

his sentences concurrently and said he was “ready” to serve twelve years.

The trial court considered the principles of sentencing outlined in Tennessee Code 

Annotated section 40-35-103 and the purposes of sentencing outlined in Tennessee Code 

Annotated section 40-35-102. The court acknowledged that it had considered the nature 

and characteristics of Defendant’s criminal conduct, the statistical information provided by 

the Administrative Office of the Courts, Defendant’s potential for rehabilitation or 

treatment, Defendant’s allocution, the testimony at the sentencing hearing, the presentence 

report, and the Strong R Assessment.

Based on Officer Silverthorn’s testimony and the presentence report, the trial court 

found that Defendant had fifteen prior convictions, including seven felonies and eight 

misdemeanors. The court noted that Defendant’s criminal history was “disturbing” and 

that Defendant, who was forty-eight years old, had been in the criminal justice system since 

age twenty-one. The court noted that Defendant had “been afforded the privilege of 

probation no less than nine times” and had five partial revocations and two full revocations. 

The court found that Defendant’s assertion that his probation officer did nothing in 

response to Defendant’s request for help with his addiction was not credible. The court 

also noted its skepticism that Defendant truly wanted help for his addiction when he was 

still using methamphetamine while having “serious medical conditions.” The court found 

that Defendant was “an offender whose record of criminal activity is extensive.” Tenn. 

Code Ann. § 40-35-115(b)(2). The court aligned the effective twelve-year sentence in Case 

No. 27504 consecutively to the twelve-year sentence in Case No. 27505 and aligned the 
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four-year sentence in Case No. 27136 concurrently, for a total effective sentence of twentyfour years’ incarceration.

Defendant appeals.

Analysis

On appeal, Defendant claims that the trial court erred in denying fully concurrent 

sentencing. Defendant does not appear to contest the trial court’s finding that his criminal 

record is extensive and acknowledges that “he has a lengthy history of drug offenses and 

at least one sex crime . . . as well as violations of the sex offender registry.” However, he 

contends that the trial court did not adequately consider that his last probation revocation 

occurred in 2010 or the presentence report officer’s statement that Defendant needed help 

for mental health and substance abuse issues.1 He also argues that the trial court did not 

weigh its finding that Defendant’s criminal record was extensive against the statutory 

mitigating factors in Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-113(1) and (3). The State 

argues that the trial court acted within its discretion in aligning the sentences consecutively. 

We agree with the State.

To facilitate meaningful appellate review of sentencing, the trial court must state on 

the record the factors it considered and the reasons for imposing the sentence chosen. Tenn. 

Code Ann. § 40-35-210(e) (2020); State v. Bise, 380 S.W.3d at 682, 706 (Tenn. 2012). 

When the record clearly establishes that the trial court imposed a sentence within the 

appropriate range after a “proper application of the purposes and principles of our 

Sentencing Act,” this court reviews the trial court’s sentencing decision under an abuse of 

discretion standard with a presumption of reasonableness. Bise, 380 S.W.3d at 707. The 

party challenging the sentence on appeal bears the burden of establishing that the sentence 

was improper. Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-401 (2020), Sentencing Comm’n Cmts. 

In State v. Pollard, the Tennessee Supreme Court expanded its holding in Bise to 

trial courts’ decisions regarding consecutive sentencing. 432 S.W.3d 851, 859 (Tenn. 

2013). “So long as a trial court properly articulates reasons for ordering consecutive 

sentences, thereby providing a basis for meaningful appellate review, the sentences will be 

presumed reasonable and, absent an abuse of discretion, upheld on appeal.” Id. (citing 

Tenn. R. Crim. P. 32(c)(1)).

 

1 We note that Defendant also cites and discusses caselaw relevant to Tennessee Rule of Criminal 

Procedure 8 governing joinder and severance of offenses, in which he argues that the close proximity in 

time of the offenses in Case Nos. 27504 and 27505 “make it persuasive for the court to run the matters 

concurrent.” Similarly, he argues that concurrent sentencing is warranted because the offenses were part of 

a common scheme or plan. Defendant offers no authority in support of the proposition that 

joinder/severance jurisprudence applies in any way to sentencing issues.
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When a defendant is convicted of more than one criminal offense, the trial court 

must determine if sentences will run consecutively or concurrently based on the criteria in 

Tennessee Code Annotated Section 40-35-115(b). Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-115(a). The 

court has the discretion to order sentences to run consecutively if the court finds by a 

preponderance of the evidence any one of the ten listed grounds in Tennessee Code 

Annotated Section 40-35-115(b), including when “the court finds by a preponderance of 

the evidence that[] . . . [t]he defendant is an offender whose record of criminal activity is 

extensive[.]” Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-115(b)(2) (2022); see Pollard, 432 S.W.3d at 862. 

As a preliminary matter, Defendant’s complaint about the trial court’s not 

considering two statutory mitigating factors when ordering consecutive service of his 

sentences is wholly without merit. The Sentencing Commission Comments to Code 

section 40-35-113 specifically state that, “[u]nder § 40-35-210(b)(5), the trial judge is 

required to consider mitigating factors in determining the specific sentence length and the 

appropriate combination of sentencing alternatives that should be imposed.” (emphasis 

added). Mitigating factors are not relevant to consecutive sentencing determinations. See, 

e.g., Norris v. State, No. M2017-01006-CCA-R3-PC, 2018 WL 3058363, at *4 (Tenn. 

Crim. App. June 20, 2018) (noting that consideration of a mitigating factor would not have 

changed the consecutive nature of the petitioner’s sentence because mitigating factors are 

“involved in the range and duration of a specific sentence for an offense and not with the 

determination of whether they shall be served consecutively or concurrently”) (quoting 

State v. Baker, 751 S.W.2d 154, 166-67 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1987)).

On December 9, 2022, approximately four months after the date Defendant was 

sentenced, our supreme court held that a trial court should consider the following nonexclusive factors when finding that a defendant has an extensive record of criminal activity: 

(1) The amount of criminal activity, often the number of convictions, both 

currently before the trial court for sentencing and prior convictions or 

activity;

(2) The time span over which the criminal activity occurred;

(3) The frequency of criminal activity within that time span;

(4) The geographic span over which the criminal activity occurred;

(5) Multiplicity of victims of the criminal activity; and

(6) Any other fact about the defendant or circumstance surrounding the 

criminal activity or convictions, present or prior, that informs the 

determination of whether an offender’s record of criminal activity was 

considerable or large in amount, time, space, or scope.
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State v. Perry, 656 S.W.3d 116, 129 (Tenn. 2022) (footnotes omitted).

Even without the guidance of Perry, the trial court properly articulated its reasoning 

for aligning the sentence in Case No. 27505 and the sentence in Case No. 27504 

consecutively. The trial court found Defendant’s criminal history “disturbing,” noting that 

at the time of sentencing Defendant had a twenty-seven-year criminal record, which 

included convictions for seven felonies and eight misdemeanors. Additionally, Defendant 

was before the trial court for sentencing on four other felonies. We note that many of 

Defendant’s convictions were drug-related or involved violating the sex offender registry

and were similar to the convictions in this case. The trial court’s sentencing decision is 

therefore afforded a presumption of reasonableness. The trial court did not abuse its

discretion in imposing partial consecutive sentences, and Defendant is not entitled to relief 

on this basis. 

Conclusion

The judgments of the trial court are affirmed. 

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ROBERT L. HOLLOWAY, JR., JUDGE