Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-109

Especially mitigated offender

Known as the Tennessee Criminal Sentencing Reform Act

The act spans §§ 40–40 (69 sections).

Applied in 14 court decisions — leading case United States v. Mitchell (2014)

Most recently applied in United States v. Mitchell (February 2014)

Acts 1989, ch. 591, § 6.

How often courts cite this section

citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) The court may find the defendant is an especially mitigated offender, if: The defendant has no prior felony convictions; and

(2) The court finds mitigating, but no enhancement factors.

(3) If the court finds the defendant an especially mitigated offender, the court shall reduce the defendant's statutory Range I minimum sentence by ten percent (10%) or reduce the release eligibility date to twenty percent (20%) of the sentence, or both reductions. If the court employs both reductions, the calculation for release eligibility shall be made by first reducing the sentence and then reducing the release eligibility to twenty percent (20%).

(4) If the defendant is found to be an especially mitigated offender, the judgment of conviction shall so reflect.

(5) The finding that a defendant is or is not an especially mitigated offender is appealable by either party.

Current official text: Tennessee Code (LexisNexis). Digitized from the UniCourt Code Improvement Commission public-domain capture. Reproduced from public-domain Tennessee statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.