State of Tennessee v. James Leon Parker

Syllabus

Defendant, James Leon Parker, appeals the Sullivan County Criminal Court's summary dismissal of his motion for resentencing pursuant to the Drug Free Zone Act (\DFZA\). Defendant was convicted in 2008 of several drug-related offenses, including one count of sale of .5 grams or more of cocaine within 1,000 feet of a school (Count 6) and one count of delivery of .5 grams or more of cocaine within 1,000 feet of a school (Count 7). The trial court merged Counts 6 and 7 and imposed a sentence of 25 years on those counts, which the court ordered to run consecutively to his effective eight-year sentence in the other counts, for a total effective sentence of 33 years. In 2022, Defendant filed a pro se motion for resentencing under Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-17-432(h), and the trial court appointed counsel. While Defendant's motion was pending in the trial court, Governor Bill Lee granted Defendant executive clemency, ordering that Defendant's 25- year sentence in Counts 6 and 7 be commuted, which allowed Defendant to immediately become parole eligible on those counts. Based on Governor Lee's commutation order, the trial court determined that Defendant was ineligible for resentencing and dismissed Defendant's motion \without a hearing due to that ineligibility.\ Defendant appeals that dismissal and asks this Court to review it under as a writ of certiorari. Following our review, we grant certiorari and reverse and remand for a hearing on Defendant's motion.