The man convicted of running down a Dayton, Tennessee, man and leaving him to die will spend the rest of his life in prison unless a motion for new trial is granted or an appeal is successful.
Douglas Edward Alvey, 53, appeared last week in Rhea County Circuit Criminal Court for the imposition of the life sentence on the first-degree murder conviction and for Judge Justin Angel to hand down a sentence on the accompanying conviction for leaving the scene of an accident involving death.
A conviction in Tennessee for first-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence with the possibility for parole. A defendant also can be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in some cases.
In April, Alvey was convicted in the September 2016 hit-and-run death of 60-year-old Walter Hale, a well-known employee of the We Care Thrift Center in Dayton where the crime happened.
Court records from Alvey's May 31 hearing before Circuit Court Judge Justin Angel show one initially charged class E felony count of vehicular homicide was dismissed. Angel officially imposed the life sentence on the class A felony count of first-degree murder and then sentenced Alvey to two years in prison on the class E felony count of leaving the scene of an accident involving death, court records show.
Angel ordered the two-year sentence be served at the same time as the life sentence, records show. Tennessee Department of Correction records show Alvey now is incarcerated at Bledsoe County Correctional Complex west of Pikeville. He was given credit for having already served jail time in the case from Sept. 23, 2016, to May 31, documents state.
Twelfth Judicial District Attorney General Mike Taylor said Wednesday that Alvey's attorneys have 30 days from last week's hearing to file a motion for a new trial. If that motion is overruled, then the case could be appealed to the Criminal Court of Appeals in Knoxville, he said. If the appeal is denied then the case can be petitioned to the state Supreme Court, which decides whether or not to hear it.
Douglas Alvey, right, watches as his attorneys review notes during a break in the trial on Wednesday in Rhea County Circuit Criminal Court.If upheld, Alvey's "life sentence" under current Tennessee law and Tennessee Department of Correction standards means that he must serve 60 years in prison.
"Under the law, that's a 100-percent sentence," Taylor said, "but it can be reduced by 15 percent - that's not automatic."
Even if the sentence was reduced, Alvey would have to live to be more than 100 before he could seek parole, he said.
An evenly split jury of men and women selected from a jury pool in neighboring Sequatchie County took fewer than three hours to reach a guilty verdict in Alvey's murder trial in April.
According to trial testimony, Hale's last lunch sat half-eaten in his gold Honda Accord as he fought for his life at a Knoxville hospital on Sept. 6, 2016, after the hit-and-run behind We Care Thrift Center. Alvey was arrested on a charge of criminal homicide in the case Sept. 22, 2016, and the charge was upgraded by a grand jury to first-degree murder in January 2017.
Alvey had spent much of Hale's lunch hour quietly shopping inside the store. When he left, he drove his white Ford Ranger pickup truck to the back of the store and dumped something out of the truck bed onto the ground. Hale got out of his Honda Accord, presumably to confront Alvey about dumping the item in the parking lot, according to testimony and video shown to jurors during the trial.
Alvey then drove toward Hale, striking him and slinging him off the truck's hood onto the ground as Alvey sped away, according to testimony.
Hale died four days later.
Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569. Follow him on Twitter @BenBenton or at www.facebook.com/benbenton1.