A Chattanooga man accused of shooting his 70-year-old brother in the head six years ago pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter and was released from custody on time served.
Marvin Preston, 74, was arrested and indicted by a grand jury on a first-degree murder charge after police responded to a shots-fired call Nov. 24, 2019, according to an arrest report. Police found his brother, Floyd Preston, dead inside his home on the 1600 block of Dogwood Drive.
Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Barry Steelman accepted Marvin Preston’s no contest plea Monday, according to court records. He was released on time served and unsupervised probation, having spent the past six years in pretrial confinement.
His attorney, Michael Acuff, said by phone that his client submitted an Alford plea, also known as a best-interest plea, which he said allowed the man to accept the sentence without admitting guilt. The lawyer did not want to say anything further beyond the fact that his client had plans to be picked up by his family Monday night.
Preston did not contest the state’s ability to convict him, which means a voluntary manslaughter conviction went on his record, according to prosecutor Andrew Coyle.
There was not a reasonable likelihood of successful prosecution, Coyle said, so he reduced the first-degree murder charge. The most likely guilty verdict from a jury trial would have been voluntary manslaughter, he said, for which Preston already spent the maximum possible sentence in pretrial confinement.
“I don’t believe that it’s appropriate,” Coyle said, “to hold somebody in custody beyond the longer term than the law of the state of Tennessee would allow.”
The facts of the case were thin, Coyle said by phone. The state had no motive and no witnesses from inside the home.
Police interviewed a neighbor, who gave an inconsistent account of Preston’s vehicle at the scene, according to an arrest report. Detectives also noted damage to his vehicle matching damage to a stop sign at an intersection near his brother’s house.
When police first spoke to Preston, he allegedly told them he distrusts his brother’s neighbors. According to the police, he also allegedly admitted owning a handgun of the same caliber used in the shooting.
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“What we do have, though,” Coyle said, “is evidence of mental illness that was going on, certainly at that time, and that has continued to go on until the plea.”
When a defendant has substantial mental health issues but is still found competent to stand trial, Coyle said he has to think about how those issues could be presented to a jury. Defendants with mental or physical health issues are frequently delayed out of an abundance of caution, he said, and this case is a classic example of an evaluation taking a long time.
Contact breaking news reporter Mason Edwards at medwards@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6409.