MURFREESBORO, TN - A man convicted of selling cocaine has filed an appeal, alleging errors in sentencing by a Rutherford County trial court, which imposed a forty-year prison term. The convictions stem from transactions involving Lavondas C. Nelson selling crack cocaine to a confidential informant in 2019, two of which occurred within 1,000 feet of a school. Murfreesboro Police documented the transactions, submitting videos as evidence.
In Judge Barry Tidwell's courtroom, the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Manager for Rutherford County testified that Nelson was within 150 feet of Rutherford County Head Start for the first transaction and within 800 feet of Holloway High School for the second. Consequently, Nelson received a forty-year sentence in the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC).
One of Nelson's appeal arguments contends that the trial court failed to adequately instruct the jury on entrapment and that his sentence is unduly harsh. Despite his assertions, the Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, on March 20, 2024, upheld the trial court's convictions. However, the appeals court remanded the case back to Judge Tidwell for revisions on counts 1 and 2 to reflect proper release eligibility. Those revisions should show that Nelson must serve one hundred percent of the minimum sentence in the range (eight years in Count 1 and fifteen years in Count 2) before he is eligible for release.
