By JEFF FARRELL

Staff Writer

SEVIERVILLE — If he completes the terms of his five-year probation, Pigeon Forge volunteer baseball coach Wesley Glenn Teaster can have a felony conviction for causing the death of fellow coach Jeremy Chesney removed from his record.

Circuit Judge Ben Hooper granted defense attorney Bryan Delius’s request for a deferral Monday after listening to emotional testimony from Chesney’s parents.

Hooper indicated that the law supported the suspended five-year sentence issued as part of Teaster’s plea agreement with prosecutors, and that it also supported a judicial deferral, which gives Teaster the chance to have his criminal record expunged if he doesn’t violate probation.

“Without a doubt, I think Mr. and Mrs. Chesney are opposed to judicial deferral,” Hooper said.

However, he said he believed appellate courts would rule against a different verdict or sentence.

“I suspect the Chesney family wouldn’t have been all that pleased with how the case was resolved, but I think I can safely say if it was resolved any other way it would not have survived appeal,” he said.

Last month, Teaster pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide by reckless conduct in the Aug. 4, 2008, wreck that left Chesney dead and sent Teaster to the hospital.

Teaster had been charged with being under the influence, but that charge was dropped as part of the plea agreement.

Chesney’s parents told the judge about the devastating toll of losing their only child.

“Jeremy was more than my son,” John Chesney said. “He was my best friend.”

The two of them shared a love of sports, he said, and his greatest joy was seeing his son play baseball.

“Since his death, I have no joy .,, I will never see the man Jeremy would have grown into.”

Lisa Chesney choked back sobs as she displayed pictures of her son and described his personality. He was outgoing, she said, always smiling and encouraging others to make people smile.

“That was his legacy,” she said.

She also described the hopelessness she’s faced without him.

“My only hope is my days here on Earth are short indeed,” she said.

She asked Hooper, before he made his ruling, what the verdict and the sentence would tell other people.

“What is the message if you take a life behind the wheel and all you get is a slap on the wrist?” she asked.

A blood sample taken from Teaster showed he had a blood-alcohol content of .10, according to court officials Monday. That sample, however, would not have been admissible in court.

It was drawn two and a half hours after the accident; under state law at the time of the arrest, the sample should have been drawn no more than two hours after the accident.

The law has since been changed, dropping the time limit.

Delius had also called the sample into question because Teaster, who is diabetic, had his insulin pump ripped from his body in the wreck. Delius said that could have caused a discrepancy in the sample.

Finally, tests ordered by the defense showed the blood sample didn’t contain the drugs administered to Teaster as medical personnel tended to his injuries.

Delius had a private investigator, Thomas Hamm, tell the judge what he’d learned.

Hamm said people living in the area near the wreck, including the owners of the yard where the Jeep came to rest, said wrecks were common there.

He also told the judge the neighbors said Teaster was asking about Chesney at the scene.

Hamm said emergency and medical personnel he interviewed told him they didn’t detect an odor of alcohol from Teaster, but did from Chesney.

Delius presented character letters from Teaster’s pastor, and offered several mitigating factors for the judge to consider in making his ruling.

“He has acknowledged to the court that his actions caused the death of his dear friend,” Delius said.

Special prosecutor Steve Garrett didn’t offer any enhancing factors.

Hooper took time to praise Garrett’s work, saying he believed the resolution was the only one that wold have satisfied an appellate court.

“Hopefully, the Chesneys won’t feel short-changed by the representative of the state of Tennessee,” Hooper said.

Garrett oversaw the prosecution of the case at the request of District Attorney General Jimmy Dunn, whose office ordinarily would have handled the case. Dunn’s office accepts funding from Sevier County and each of the cities in the county, including Pigeon Forge; Teaster’s grandmother is Pigeon Forge City Manager Earlene Teaster.

jfarrell@themountainpress.com