Cauthern v. State

Decision Date19 February 2004
Docket NumberNo. M2002-00929-CCA-R3-PD,M2002-00929-CCA-R3-PD
Citation145 S.W.3d 571
PartiesRonnie M. CAUTHERN v. STATE of Tennessee.
CourtTennessee Court of Criminal Appeals

Appeal from the County Court, Montgomery County, John H. Peay, J Donald E. Dawson, Post-Conviction Defender; and Paul J. Morrow, Deputy Post-Conviction Defender, for the Appellant, Ronnie M. Cauthern.

Paul G. Summers, Attorney General & Reporter; Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General; Jennifer L. Smith, Assistant Attorney General; Glenn Pruden, Assistant Attorney General; John Wesley Carney, Jr., District Attorney General; and Arthur F. Beiber, Assistant District Attorney General, for the Appellee, State of Tennessee.

JAMES CURWOOD WITT, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which JOE G. RILEY and NORMA McGEE OGLE, JJ., joined.

OPINION

The petitioner, Ronnie M. Cauthern, appeals the Montgomery County Circuit Court's denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. In 1988, the petitioner was convicted by a jury of two counts of felony murder and sentenced to death. He was also convicted of the related crimes of first degree burglary and aggravated rape. His convictions were affirmed on direct appeal by the Tennessee Supreme Court, but his death sentences were reversed and remanded for a new sentencing trial. Upon retrial before a jury in 1995, the petitioner received the death penalty for the murder of one victim and a sentence of life imprisonment for the second victim's murder. Those sentences were appealed and affirmed, following which the petitioner instituted a collateral proceeding seeking post-conviction relief from his convictions and sentences. Lengthy hearings were conducted on the petitioner's claims, the majority of which involved allegations that counsel representing him in his 1988 and 1995 trials rendered constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel. On appeal, the petitioner contends (1) that trial counsel's services were deficient and prejudicial; (2) that the state suppressed exculpatory evidence in violation of his due process rights; (3) that the United States Supreme Court's opinions in Apprendi v. New Jersey and Ring v. Arizona require that his death sentence be set aside; (4) that he was entitled to but was not notified of his right to seek German consular assistance pursuant to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations; (5) that the lower court erroneously concluded that some of his claims had been waived or previously determined; (6) that Tennessee's system of capital punishment is unconstitutional; and (7) that erroneous jury instructions impaired his right to a fair trial. After an extensive review of the record and consideration of applicable law, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

Before this court, the petitioner stands convicted of murdering Clarksville, Tennessee residents Patrick and Rosemary Smith. The petitioner received and is presently serving a sentence of life imprisonment for the felony murder of Patrick Smith. A jury imposed the death penalty as punishment for the petitioner's involvement in Rosemary Smith's homicide. The petitioner initiated and has pursued a collateral attack, in the form of a post-conviction petition, against his convictions and death sentence. The petition for relief was denied, and on this appeal, we are called upon to review the post-conviction court's findings and conclusions that led to the dismissal of the post-conviction petition.

Our appellate inquiry begins with an overview of the procedural and factual history of the case and moves to a summary of the post-conviction claims and the evidentiary hearings on those claims. Next, we examine the post-conviction court's rationale for its treatment of the petitioner's claims. Last, we evaluate whether the record and applicable law support the post-conviction court's rulings, mindful that different standards of appellate review attach to different aspects of the rulings.

PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Following a 1988 jury trial, Ronnie M. Cauthern and Brett Patterson were convicted in Montgomery County of first degree burglary, aggravated rape, and two counts of felony murder for their involvement in a 1987 home invasion that occurred in Clarksville. At a separate penalty trial, the jury sentenced Patterson to life imprisonment, and the petitioner received the death penalty for both homicides. State v. Cauthern, 778 S.W.2d 39, 40 (Tenn.1989), cert. denied, 495 U.S. 904, 110 S.Ct. 1922, 109 L.Ed.2d 286 (1990). On direct appeal, the Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the petitioner's convictions but remanded to the trial court for a resentencing trial. Id. at 47-48.1

Because of pretrial publicity, venue was transferred to Gibson County. A jury selected from that county in 1995 sentenced the petitioner to life imprisonment for the murder of Mr. Smith and imposed the death penalty for the murder of Mrs. Smith, based on the "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel" nature of the murder. See Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-204(i)(5) (1991). The court of criminal appeals and the supreme court affirmed the sentence. State v. Cauthern, 967 S.W.2d 726 (Tenn. 1998); State v. Ronnie Michael Cauthern, No. 02C01-9506-CC-00164, 1996 WL 937660 (Tenn.Crim.App.Nashville, 1996).

In 1999, the petitioner timely filed a pro se petition for post-conviction relief. The petition was filed in Montgomery County, but the case was transferred shortly thereafter to Gibson County, where counsel was appointed and a stay of execution was issued. Ultimately, pursuant to a joint motion of the state and the petitioner, the matter was reassigned to Montgomery County for consideration and disposition. A multi-day evidentiary hearing was conducted over a period of months, and the parties submitted written closing arguments in September 2001. On November 21, 2001, the post-conviction court issued an exhaustive, 63-page memorandum and order dismissing the petition.

OVERVIEW OF 1988 TRIAL AND 1995 RESENTENCING TRIAL

We begin with a factual summary of the evidence from the jury trials leading to the petitioner's convictions and sentences for the murders of Patrick and Rosemary Smith. These facts are taken from and appear in the two earlier 1989 and 1998 supreme court opinions.

The Smiths were both captains in the U.S. Army stationed at Fort Campbell Kentucky.... Both were nurses. When neither of them reported to their duty stations on the morning of 9 January 1987 and telephone calls to their home received no answer, two persons from the base went to their home, observed broken glass in the rear door, and both cars in the garage. A 911 call was made and the police arrived promptly and discovered the body of Patrick Smith lying face down on the bed in the master bedroom, facing 90 degrees counter clockwise from his sleeping position, and wrapped in the top sheet. He had been strangled to death, apparently with a length of 880 military cord. The bed was broken and tilted indicating a violent struggle had taken place.

Cauthern, 778 S.W.2d at 40.

... The body of Rosemary Smith was discovered in another bedroom; her underclothes were next to her body and her nightgown was in the corner of the room. A scarf had been tied around her neck and knotted, with a small vase inserted between the nape of the neck and the knot, creating a tourniquet.

... Credit cards, electronic gear and a videocassette recorder appeared to be missing from the house. Police found costume jewelry in the house, but no jewelry of value.

Cauthern, 967 S.W.2d at 730.

The police found the telephone line had been cut near its entry into the outside wall of the house. A shoe print was found on the back door that matched Patterson's shoe. In a statement that he gave police he admitted kicking the back door once or twice, but said it would not open so they obtained a hammer and broke the pane of glass nearest the door knob to gain entry. The house was ransacked, chest of drawers open, luggage and clothing scattered about. In the master bedroom, the police found a piece of paper upon which was written defendant Cauthern's name, address and telephone number. Rosemary Smith's sister testified she was familiar with both her sister's and her brother-in-law's handwriting and the information about Cauthern was not written by either of them. The cumulative evidence [established] that defendant and the Smiths had been acquainted for approximately a year at the time of the murders, that he had performed some work on Patrick's Mercedes and perhaps some additional work at their home, although he said in one of his statements that he had never been inside their home until the evening of 8 January 1987.

Cauthern, 778 S.W.2d at 40.

... James Phillip Andrew testified [at both trials] that he was with the defendant, Ronnie Cauthern, and Brett Patterson shortly after the offenses. While watching television, they all saw an account of the Smiths' murders in which a reward was offered for information. Cauthern told Andrew that he had worked for the Smiths in the past and that he broke into their home and made the woman get into the closet, while he and Patterson strangled the man. Cauthern told Andrew that he raped the woman once and that he had stolen a wedding ring, a VCR, and some credit cards.....

Joe Denning, Andrew's roommate, also testified that Ronnie Cauthern admitted his role in the killings. Cauthern told Denning that he had cut the telephone lines to the house, had broken in through the back door, had shined flashlights in the victims' faces in order to wake them, and had placed Rosemary Smith in a closet. He admitted to Denning that he had raped the woman and poured wine coolers over her, and then attempted to kill her. He said he tried to strangle the woman by tying a scarf around her neck, but did not have the strength to kill her, so he used the vase to create a tourniquet....

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