State v. Knowles

Decision Date31 July 2015
Docket NumberNo. W2013-00503-SC-R11-CD,W2013-00503-SC-R11-CD
Citation470 S.W.3d 416
PartiesState of Tennessee v. Courtney Knowles
CourtTennessee Supreme Court

470 S.W.3d 416

State of Tennessee
v.
Courtney Knowles

No. W2013-00503-SC-R11-CD

Supreme Court of Tennessee, AT JACKSON.

March 4, 2015 Session
Filed July 31, 2015


Juni S. Ganguli, Memphis, Tennessee for the appellant, Courtney Knowles.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Andrée S. Blumstein, Solicitor General; Rachel E. Willis, Senior Counsel; Amy P. Weirich, District Attorney General; and Jennifer Nichols and Samuel Winnig, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

Opinion

CORNELIA A. CLARK, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which SHARON G. LEE, C.J., JEFFREY S. BIVINS, and HOLLY KIRBY, JJ., joined. GARY R. WADE, J., filed a dissenting opinion.

OPINION

CORNELIA A. CLARK,, J.

The dispositive issue in this appeal is whether an inaccuracy in the prosecution's election of offenses amounted to plain error that entitles the defendant to relief. Although the Court of Criminal Appeals erred by failing to subject the election issue to plain error analysis, we hold, after thoroughly reviewing the record pursuant to the plain error doctrine, that the election error does not entitle the defendant to relief. Despite the inaccuracy, the election was sufficiently specific to eliminate any substantial risk that the jury would return a non-unanimous verdict. Additionally, the defendant has failed to provide a complete record of the proceedings in the trial court. Accordingly, under these circumstances, we affirm, on the separate

470 S.W.3d 418

grounds stated, the Court of Criminal Appeals' judgment upholding the defendant's conviction of rape of a child.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

In August 2007, a Shelby County Grand Jury indicted Courtney Knowles (“the defendant”) for two counts of rape of a child. The victims of the alleged rapes were the minor daughters of the defendant's half-sister and live-in girlfriend, T.M.1 Before trial, the State agreed to sever the two counts. In January of 2012,2 the trial court conducted a jury trial on the first count of the indictment, which related to T.M.'s oldest daughter (“the victim”) and charged that “between January 1, 2005 and April 21, 2007, ... [the defendant] did unlawfully and intentionally sexually penetrate [the victim], a person more than three (3) years of age but less than thirteen (13) years of age.”

At trial, T.M. testified that the defendant moved into her residence at “1680 Claire” in Memphis in June or July of 2004, to live with her and her three children. T.M. explained that, although she and the defendant were living together as boyfriend and girlfriend, the defendant was also her half-brother, the two sharing the same biological father. The victim referred to the defendant as her “Uncle Courtney” and testified that she was unaware that the defendant was her mother's boyfriend until T.M. “had a baby.”3

T.M. testified that, in January 2005, the defendant told her that he had “licked” the victim. The defendant then immediately recanted the statement, stating that he only made the statement to force T.M. to “make him leave [her] house.” T.M. allowed the defendant to stay in her residence and did not report the defendant's admission to law enforcement authorities.

In April 2005, T.M.'s younger daughter suffered a stroke and was hospitalized for about a month. The victim, then in the third grade, accompanied T.M. and the defendant to the hospital. At T.M.'s suggestion, the defendant drove the victim home from the hospital to pack a change of clothes and other necessary items. At trial, the victim provided the following description of what occurred when she and the defendant arrived at their home:

Q: Okay. What happened when you went home that day?
A: Well, we was getting everything ready, and then [the defendant] called me in the room, and he took all my clothes off, and he was just touching on me; and he made me touch his private area—his penis area. And he was trying to show me how to suck his penis area by describing with his finger.
Q: You said he described it with his finger?—what did he do with his finger?
A: He was licking his finger to show me what to do with his penis.
Q: Did you try and do what he asked you to do?
470 S.W.3d 419
A: Yes, ma'am.
Q: You said he was touching on you. Where was he touching you?
A: He had touched me on my breasts, my private area—well, my vagina and my butt.
Q: What room was this in?
A: My mother's room.

The victim testified that she was scared and that she cried for her mother. Eventually, the defendant stopped, and he drove the victim back to the hospital. The victim did not tell T.M. what had happened.

The victim testified that the defendant continued to sexually abuse her “many times,” and that the abuse occurred “like every day like when we were in the shower or tub or when my mother was gone or asleep.” The victim stated that the defendant would touch her vagina, breasts, and buttocks and that he would “lick [her] vagina.” The defendant did not ask the victim to lick his penis again, but he once attempted to insert his penis “in [her] bottom.” The victim described that incident, stating that the defendant “had me like on my mama's bed—it was in the middle of her bed; and he was on the bed too; and his knees was on the bed, and he had my bottom in the air.” The victim asked the defendant to stop, and he complied.

The victim testified that, on more than one occasion, the defendant would molest her while she was in the shower and that many times she would awaken in the night to find the defendant touching her. The victim reported that the defendant used his cellular telephone to take photographs of her breasts, vagina, and buttocks while she was naked, and she testified that the defendant once used his video camera to make a tape of the sexual abuse. The victim described that incident as follows:

Well, my mama, she left that day and said she went to the store; and [the defendant] just walked in with the camera. I was lying on the couch. And he said—he took my clothes off; and he had my legs up; and he had my shirt (indiscernible). He was playing with my breasts, my vagina, and my bottom; and he turned me over to play with my bottom and my vagina area too.

The victim also described one occasion between the first incident of abuse and the making of the tape, when she was riding in the defendant's vehicle and he drove her to a hotel:

I'm thinking that he was gonna pick somebody up, but he took me to the hotel, took all my clothes off, and he was touching on me, licking my vagina; and he—had his penis out, but he weren't sticking it inside my vagina. He had it like on top moving back and forth. And he did it so long that that sperm came out, and he was like, “Look what you make me do.”

On Easter Sunday 2007, T.M., while running errands, found the defendant's video camera inside her vehicle's glove compartment. She noticed an eight millimeter videocassette tape (“the tape”) inside the camera. The tape showed the victim seated on the living room sofa in T.M.'s house, and although T.M. could not see the defendant's face on the video, she recognized the defendant's voice, and she saw the defendant “touch[ing the victim's] vagina.” T.M. immediately drove home and confronted the defendant about the tape. Another girl was also visible on the tape, and although the defendant willingly showed T.M. the portion of the tape that included this girl, he did not show T.M. the portion that included the victim. T.M. removed the tape from the video camera, and, the following day, she took the tape to a camera store and paid to have the contents

470 S.W.3d 420

transferred to a digital video disc (the “DVD”).

T.M. later informed the defendant that she had made a DVD of the tape. Over the next few weeks, T.M. and the defendant argued over the whereabouts of the DVD and the tape, which T.M. had hidden inside a handbag. During their final fight, which occurred on April 25, 2007, the defendant put a gun to T.M.'s head and threatened to kill her. When the defendant left T.M.'s residence, she called 911 but hung up before speaking to the operator.

As a result of the 911 hang-up call, Sergeant Judith Blue of the Memphis Police Department (“MPD”) was dispatched to T.M.'s residence. When Sergeant Blue arrived at the scene, she spoke with T.M., who stated that she had been involved in a physical altercation with the defendant and that the defendant had threatened her with a handgun. T.M. also informed Sergeant Blue “that there was some sexual abuse going on that involved her minor daughter.” T.M. gave Sergeant Blue the defendant's video camera and the DVD. Sergeant Blue testified that T.M. then attempted to play the DVD on the home computer, but due to a large scratch on the DVD's surface, the...

To continue reading

Request your trial
63 cases
  • State v. Clayton, W2015-00158-SC-DDT-DD
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Tennessee
    • 1 Junio 2017
    ...at any time, even though the error was not raised in the motion for a new trial or assigned as error on appeal.’ " State v. Knowles , 470 S.W.3d 416, 423 (Tenn. 2015) (quoting Tenn. R. App. P. 36(b) ). "We refer to this discretionary consideration of waived issues as ‘plain error’ review." ......
  • Hatfield v. Allenbrooke Nursing & Rehab. Ctr., LLC, W2017-00957-COA-R3-CV
    • United States
    • Court of Appeals of Tennessee
    • 6 Agosto 2018
    ...jury relied on this evidence in reaching its verdict. Cf. State v. Harbison, 539 S.W.3d 149, 163 (Tenn. 2018) (quoting State v. Knowles, 470 S.W.3d 416, 426 (Tenn. 2015)) ("We presume that the jury follows all instructions given by the trial court, 'with commonsense understanding of the ins......
  • State v. Harbison
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Tennessee
    • 9 Enero 2018
    ...in the light of all that has taken place at the trial [that is] likely to prevail over technical hairsplitting." State v. Knowles , 470 S.W.3d 416, 426 (Tenn. 2015) (quoting Boyde v. California , 494 U.S. 370, 381, 110 S.Ct. 1190, 108 L.Ed.2d 316 (1990) ). To overcome this presumption, the ......
  • State v. Minor, W2016-00348-SC-R11-CD
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Tennessee
    • 11 Abril 2018
    ...application of appellate court decisions. All of these issues are questions of law to which de novo review applies. See State v. Knowles, 470 S.W.3d 416, 423 (Tenn. 2015) ("Whether the plain error doctrine has been satisfied is a question of law which we review de novo."); Bush v. State, 42......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT