STATE OF TENNESSEE v. AMANDA JEAN PHILLIPS - Articles

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Posted by: Azya Thornton on Mar 30, 2026

Court: TN Court of Criminal Appeals

Attorneys 1: Mitchell A. Raines, Assistant Public Defender-Appellate Division, Franklin, Tennessee (on appeal); and David A. Stuart, Clinton, Tennessee (at trial), for the appellant, Amanda Jean Phillips.

Attorneys 2: Jonathan Skrmetti, Attorney General and Reporter; Benjamin L. Barker, Assistant Attorney General; Jared Effler, District Attorney General; and Apryl C. Bradshaw and Thomas E. Barclay, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

Judge(s): CAMPBELL

The Defendant, Amanda Jean Phillips, was convicted by a Scott County jury of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a Class C felony; two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, a Class A felony; two counts of aggravated child neglect of a child eight years of age or less, a Class A felony; and carjacking, a Class B felony. The trial court sentenced the Defendant to four years for the aggravated assault conviction, twenty years for each of the especially aggravated kidnapping convictions, twenty years for each of the aggravated child neglect convictions, and ten years for the carjacking conviction. Finding the Defendant to be a dangerous offender, the trial court ordered partial consecutive sentences for an effective total sentence of thirty years at 100% service in the Tennessee Department of Correction. On appeal, the Defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence in support of her aggravated child neglect convictions and argues that the trial court erred by not considering a mandatory mitigating factor in imposing her especially aggravated kidnapping sentences and by classifying her as a dangerous offender under the consecutive sentencing statute. We conclude that the evidence is sufficient to support the Defendant’s convictions for aggravated child neglect and that the trial court did not err in its application of enhancement and mitigating factors but failed to make adequate findings in support of consecutive sentencing under the dangerous offender criterion of the consecutive sentencing statute. However, upon de novo review, we conclude that the record supports the imposition of consecutive sentences based on the Defendant’s having committed the offenses while she was on probation. Accordingly, we affirm the Defendant’s convictions and the sentences imposed by the trial court.

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