Tennessee appeals court hears challenge to sentence enhancement based on 2010 Florida aggravated-assault conviction

The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals heard oral argument in State of Tennessee v. Billy Anderson on whether a November 2010 Florida aggravated-assault conviction may lawfully be used to enhance Anderson’s sentence from Range I to Range II, attorneys said during the court’s afternoon docket.

The outcome could affect a sentence the trial court imposed after Anderson pleaded guilty on Feb. 9, 2024, to attempted first-degree murder and second-degree murder and was given consecutive Range II terms of 40 years and 35 years. Defense counsel asked the appeals court to remand for resentencing at Range I if the Florida conviction cannot be counted.

Appellate attorney Austin Van Hoy, representing Billy Anderson, said the central question is categorical equivalence: "Does Florida's aggravated assault statute match Tennessee's element for element so that it can lawfully enhance the range?" Van Hoy argued it does not, saying the Florida statute includes an "intent to commit any felony" prong that Tennessee’s aggravated-assault law does not criminalize and that the record contains no Shepard-authorized documents showing which statutory mode led to Anderson’s Florida conviction.

Van Hoy told the judges that when a sentencing record is silent, Tennessee precedent requires treating an out-of-state conviction as inapplicable for enhancement if the foreign statute is categorically broader and the state fails to show the conviction rested on elements that would be a Tennessee felony of the requisite class. He asked the court to remand for resentencing at Range I rather than order any new trial or plea.

Benjamin Barker, introduced to the court as a member of the Attorney General’s office, told the three-judge panel the trial court properly treated the Florida conviction as a Class C felony for enhancement. Barker described the three-step inquiry applied to foreign convictions and said the proper test is whether the foreign offense is analogous to the Tennessee offense rather than strict element-for-element identity: "The test is just not whether the elements align ... but whether they extend beyond the corresponding Tennessee offense," Barker said, and pointed to the certified Florida judgment showing conviction under Florida Statute 784.0211(a).

Barker also noted that, apart from the foreign-conviction question, the state introduced certified Tennessee judgments at the sentencing hearing showing a 2013 attempted second-degree murder conviction and a 2013 aggravated-burglary conviction. He told the court that Tennessee’s 24-hour merger rule is subject to an explicit carve-out for aggravated burglary under Tennessee Code Annotated 40-35-106(b)(4), and on that basis argued the state reached Range II even without the Florida judgment.

Judge Robert Montgomery and other members of the panel asked questions about whether the record below actually supported the state's enhancement theory. Montgomery flagged the trial-court record and the state's reply brief, asking whether the convictions that occurred within the same 24-hour period could nevertheless produce two convictions for enhancement purposes. Van Hoy said he had not reviewed all sentencing materials and could not confirm that point from the bench; he acknowledged he was appointed for appeal work and apologized for not having that specific response.

No decision was announced during the hearing. Counsel for both sides presented legal argument and identified the remedy they sought; the court did not render a ruling on the record during the session. The court then adjourned until its August session.