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Appellate panel hears challenge to denial of judicial diversion in Somerville aggravated-assault case
Summary
At oral argument before the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals, appellant counsel argued the trial court denied judicial diversion without a clear guilty plea and without the individualized analysis Tennessee precedent requires; the State urged affirmance, and the court took the matter under advisement.
Josie Holland, attorney for appellant Mark Marcus Somerville, told the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals that the trial court “failed to conduct the individualized assessment of diversion eligibility that Tennessee law demands” and compounded that error by imposing a sentence without a clear, individualized guilty plea.
The appeal challenges the trial court’s denial of judicial diversion for Somerville, a first-time offender convicted of a Class C felony and sentenced to incarceration, and raises two main claims: (1) the record does not clearly show Somerville entered a knowing, voluntary guilty plea before sentencing, and (2) the trial court did not articulate the Parker/King factors on the record for an individualized diversion analysis. “It is a due process procedural failing,” Holland told the panel.
The issue over whether Somerville actually entered a guilty plea animated much…
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