IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE

AT NASHVILLE

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. TIMOTHY J. HICKMAN

Appeal from the Criminal Court for Davidson County

No. 94-A-59 Cheryl Blackburn, Judge

No. M2017-00836-CCA-R3-CD

_____________________________

The Appellant, Timothy J. Hickman, is appealing the trial court’s denial of his motion to 

correct an illegal sentence. The State has filed a motion asking this Court to affirm 

pursuant to Court of Criminal Appeals Rule 20. Said motion is hereby granted.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Order of the Trial Court Affirmed Pursuant 

to Court of Criminal Appeals Rule 20

ROBERT L. HOLLOWAY, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERT W.

WEDEMEYER and TIMOTHY L. EASTER, JJ. joined.

Timothy J. Hickman, pro se.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Renee W. Turner, Senior Counsel, 

for the Appellee, State of Tennessee.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

In 1994, the Appellant pled guilty to two counts of aggravated rape and one count 

of aggravated robbery. He agreed to consecutive twenty-year sentences for the 

aggravated rape convictions and ten years for the aggravated robbery conviction to be 

served concurrently to the consecutive twenty-year sentences for a total effective

sentence of forty years. There was no direct appeal. The Appellant was unsuccessful 

with his subsequent post-conviction attempt to challenge the voluntariness of his plea. 

Timothy John Hickman v. State, No. 01C01-9711-CR-00527, 1998 WL 305505 (Tenn. 

Crim. App. June 11, 1998). Similarly, he failed in his pursuit of habeas corpus relief. 

Timothy Hickman v. Howard Carlton, Warden, No. E2006-00860-CCA-R3-HC, 2006 

WL 2567511 (Tenn. Crim. App. Sep. 7, 2006). In 2015, the Appellant filed a motion to 

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correct an alleged illegal sentence. See Tenn. R. Crim. P. 36.1. The trial court 

summarily denied the motion. The Appellant now appeals. Following the filing of the 

record on appeal and the Appellant’s brief, the State filed a motion to affirm the ruling of 

the trial court pursuant to Rule 20. For the reasons stated below, said motion is hereby 

granted.

In the motion he filed in the trial court, the Appellant argued his consecutive 

twenty-year sentences are illegal because the trial court “failed to make and/or articulate 

any specific findings that the imposition of consecutive sentencing was warranted.” Rule 

36.1 permits a defendant to seek correction of an unexpired illegal sentence at any time. 

See State v. Brown, 479 S.W.3d 200, 211 (Tenn. 2015). “[A]n illegal sentence is one that 

is not authorized by the applicable statutes or that directly contravenes an applicable 

statute.” Tenn. R. Crim. P. 36.1(a). Our supreme court recently interpreted the meaning 

of “illegal sentence” as defined in Rule 36.1 and concluded that the definition “is 

coextensive, and not broader than, the definition of the term in the habeas corpus 

context.” State v. Wooden, 478 S.W.3d 585, 594-95 (Tenn. 2015). The court then 

reviewed the three categories of sentencing errors: clerical errors (those arising from a 

clerical mistake in the uniform judgment document), appealable errors (those for which 

the Sentencing Act specifically provides a right of direct appeal) and fatal errors (those so 

profound as to render a sentence illegal and void). Id. Commenting on appealable errors,

the court stated that those “generally involve attacks on the correctness of the 

methodology by which a trial court imposed sentence.” Id. In contrast, fatal errors

include “sentences imposed pursuant to an inapplicable statutory scheme, sentences 

designating release eligibility dates where early release is statutorily prohibited, sentences 

that are ordered to be served concurrently where statutorily required to be served 

consecutively, and sentences not authorized by any statute for the offenses.” Id. The 

court held that only fatal errors render sentences illegal. Id. A trial court may summarily 

dismiss a Rule 36.1 motion if it does not state a colorable claim for relief. Tenn. R. Crim. 

P. 36.1(b)(2).

The trial court did not err in summarily dismissing the Appellant’s motion in this 

case. As the State aptly observes, “offender classification and release eligibility are nonjurisdictional and legitimate bargaining tools in pleas negotiations.” Bland v. Dukes, 97 

S.W.3d 133, 134 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2002). Moreover, “a plea-bargained sentence is 

legal so long as it does not exceed the maximum punishment authorized by the plea

offense.” Hoover v. State, 215 S.W.3d 776, 780 (Tenn. 2007). The Appellant pled guilty 

to two counts of aggravated rape, a Class A felony, and his twenty-year sentence for each 

conviction as a Range I offender was specifically authorized by statute. Tenn. Code Ann. 

§ 40-35-112(a)(1) (1997 Repl.). And because he agreed to consecutive sentencing, the 

trial court was not required to make any findings thereon. State v. John T. Davis, No. 
3

W2015-00445-CCA-R3-CD, 2016 WL 1714875 at *3 (Tenn. Crim. App. Apr. 26, 2016). 

Accordingly, his sentence is not illegal under the terms of Rule 36.1.

The ruling of the trial court is hereby affirmed pursuant to Court of Criminal 

Appeals Rule 20.

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ROBERT L. HOLLOWAY, JR., JUDGE