Court Opinion

ID: 9916856
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-10 18:11:02.47264+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:03.205620
License: Public Domain

01/10/2024
        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
                      ___________________________________

                           No. M2022-01170-CCA-R3-CD
                       ___________________________________

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 twenty-
four 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)).

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          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 non-
exclusive 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.

                                                  _______________________________________
                                                  ROBERT L. HOLLOWAY, JR., JUDGE

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