Under state law, the driver of the school bus in which six Woodmore Elementary students died could get probation.
Johnthony Walker is in jail on six vehicular homicide charges in connection with a tragic wreck on Talley Road in Brainerd on Nov. 21.
The punishment for vehicular homicide by recklessness in Tennessee is 3-6 years.
The maximum that Walker would receive if convicted and sentenced consecutively would be 36 years.
However, the 24-year-old Walker has no prior criminal record - not even a traffic violation.
State law mandates the driver be considered for alternative sentencing (probation) because he is a Range One offender (with the clean record).
There is no mechanism in Tennessee for charging Walker with murder under the facts of the case.
Walker is set to appear in General Sessions Court on Thursday morning.