Tennessee Supreme Court, 1999

The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the intermediate appellate court’s reversal of Burns’s first-degree-murder conviction and remand for a new trial, concluding that trial counsel performed deficiently by failing to investigate and present evidence of a separate plot to kill the victim and that this failure created a…

The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals, modifying its decision to hold that a periodic alimony award that terminates upon a contractual contingency cannot be modified or extended after that contingency occurs, and that the occurrence of the contingency does not convert the award from alimony in…

The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed Steven Buggs's felony-murder conviction for killing Karen Beasley, concluding the evidence supported a finding that he killed her in the perpetration of a robbery because he returned home to get money for cocaine, stabbed her when she stood in the way of that purpose, and…

The Tennessee Supreme Court held that a sentence imposed under a statute that was later declared unconstitutional is voidable, not void, and therefore must be challenged within the post-conviction statute of limitations rather than corrected at any time.