Anthony Lebron Vance stood Tuesday in the Hamilton County Criminal Court, a setting that is bound to be familiar to him at this point. Mike Acuff stood by Vance, the most recent in a long line of attorneys tasked with defending Vance.
“Mr. Vance, you have a storied criminal record,” said prosecutor Andrew Croyle, before listing Vance’s lengthy list of offenses. These include burglary, theft of property, and other such crimes. But the most serious of his crimes was the reason he was before Judge Don Poole - the 2014 rape of a Chattanooga woman.
Vance had been convicted of the rape in 2016, but he was back in court to correct his sentencing. The original plea agreement had Vance serving 10 years of probation at 30 percent. However, it was later found that such an agreement is illegal, and that the correct sentencing should be 10 years’ probation at 85 percent.
After the swearing in, Vance denied accepting such a plea agreement.
“What I saw was a paper that showed me 10 years probation at 30 percent,” he said.
The prosecution went to work shortly thereafter, producing several documents from a binder full of them. Prosecutor Croyle approached Vance and showed him one of these documents.
“Is this your signature?” asked prosecutor Croyle, pointing to a paper with Vance’s signature in plain view.
“Yes,” said Vance.
“So you obviously went over this document,” said Croyle, “and can you show me anywhere on there that says 30 percent?”
In the face of this evidence, Vance maintained his original stance. He denied ever accepting such a plea agreement, despite not denying that the signature on the paper was, in fact, his.
Prosecutor Croyle then moved on to the long amount of time that had passed in between the original sentencing and Vance’s appeal.
“You have a 10-year sentence in the Tennessee penitentiary system hanging over your head. And not once did you bring up to this or any other court that this judgment was incorrect?”
Vance simply countered by stating he was in the process of doing so, and he was speaking to his attorney. He also maintained the belief that his former attorney had misled him, convincing Vance to sign the plea deal.
Prosecutor Croyle asked Vance to guess how many criminal convictions he had on record dating back to 1993. Vance said “I have three criminal convictions.”
“What?,” said Croyle, as he held another document in front of Mr. Vance. This paper was filled with Vance’s past transgressions.
“How many convictions are on this page? More than 15, would you agree?”
“You have 45 misdemeanor convictions in this county alone, dating back to 1993. That’s a lot more than three, isn’t it? You have thirteen convictions in Criminal Court alone.”
After Prosecutor Croyle had sufficiently questioned Vance, attorney Acuff asked Judge Poole to take time before ruling on the case. The attorney asserted that there were certain rules and statutes that had not been adhered to during the previous trial and plea agreement.
Judge Poole granted attorney Acuff’s wish, stating “I want to review this case before I rule on this.”