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The Tennessee State Court of Appeals upheld the sentence Wednesday of a Cookeville man convicted for the May, 2015 assault of a Tennessee Tech student.
Michael Kevin Schipp faces 15 years in prison after his conviction on one count of burglary of an
automobile and one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Schipp’s lawyers asked the court to void the sentence because the trial court did not instruct the jury on self-defense related to the assault conviction.
The incident happened outside a Tennessee Tech fraternity house in May, 2015. Marshall Thurman lived in the house and heard a scream followed by a glass break. Thurman saw Schipp breaking into a friend’s car. Thurman tackled Schipp, who got up and confronted Thurman. After several punches were thrown, Schipp took out a knife and stabbed Thurman under the arm, puncturing his lung. Thurman spent several days at Cookeville Regional Hospital.
Schipp’s attorneys admitted he committed the burglary, but said the trial court should have told the jury that self-defense could be included in deliberation. The failure to do so, according to the defense, “is the equivalent of holding that someone who is ever in the wrong has to not resist and take whatever punishment his captors believe fit the perceived crime,” according to the court transcript.
While the Appeals Court said defendants do have self-defense claims, he/she must stop committing the crime or communicate an attempt to do so. The court found no evident Schipp did either.
