Mathews v. State

• Decision Date: 27 December 2019
• Docket Number: No. M2017-01802-CCA-R3-PC,M2017-01802-CCA-R3-PC
• Citation: Mathews v. State, No. M2017-01802-CCA-R3-PC (Tenn. Crim. App. Dec 27, 2019)
• Parties: COURTNEY B. MATHEWS v. STATE OF TENNESSEE
• Court: Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals

COURTNEY B. MATHEWS v. STATE OF TENNESSEE

No. M2017-01802-CCA-R3-PC

COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT NASHVILLE

Assigned on Briefs April 16, 2019

December 27, 2019

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Montgomery County

No. 63CC1-2015-CR-343

Don R. Ash, Senior Judge

The Petitioner, Courtney B. Mathews, appeals from the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief, wherein he challenged his jury convictions for four counts of first-degree felony murder and one count of especially aggravated robbery. On appeal, the Petitioner's issues center around (1) an ex parte communication between the trial judge and trial counsel that took place at the trial judge's residence; (2) trial counsels' inadvertent disclosure of the unredacted timeline to the co-defendant's defense team that contained attorney-client privileged information; (3) the lack of any jury instructions on lesser-included offenses for the felony murder counts; (4) the Petitioner's alleged absence during the issuance of the supplemental jury instruction on criminal responsibility and when the trial judge answered jury questions; and (5) cumulative error. After a thorough review of the record, we reverse the judgment of the post-conviction court. We conclude that due to trial counsels' various deficiencies, there has been a complete breakdown in the adversarial process during the Petitioner's motion for new trial proceedings. While the Petitioner's convictions remain intact, the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Circuit Court Reversed; Case Remanded

D. KELLY THOMAS, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which JAMES CURWOOD WITT, JR., and CAMILLE R. MCMULLEN, JJ., joined.

Courtney B. Mathews (on appeal), Pro Se, Clifton, Tennessee; and Luke A. Evans and Rose Parker (at post-conviction hearing), Murfreesboro, Tennessee, for the appellant, Courtney B. Mathews.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Zachary T. Hinkle, Assistant Attorney General; John W. Carney, Jr., District Attorney General; and Arthur F. Bieber, Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

In June 1996, a Montgomery County jury convicted the Petitioner of four counts first-degree felony murder and one count of especially aggravated robbery. The Petitioner's convictions stem from the 1994 robbery of a Clarksville Taco Bell and the slaying of four of its employees. See State v. Courtney B. Matthews,¹ No. M2005-00843-CCA-R3-CD, 2008 WL 2662450, at *1 (Tenn. Crim. App. July 8, 2008), perm. app. denied (Tenn. Apr. 10, 2015). The evidence at trial established that in the early morning hours of January 30, 1994, four employees were executed during a robbery of the restaurant. Each of the four victims suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Officers also discovered that a safe in the business office of the restaurant had been blown open by a shotgun blast and emptied of nearly $3,000 in cash and coins. The State sought the death penalty, but the jury imposed a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for each felony murder conviction. The trial court sentenced the Petitioner to twenty-five years for the especially aggravated robbery conviction and ordered that all sentences be served consecutively. Judgments were filed on August 15, 1996.

In addition, David Housler, the co-defendant, was tried separately for the murders, and his trial was held in November 1997. See State v. Housler, 193 S.W.3d 476 (Tenn. 2006). He was not tried for especially aggravated robbery. The State's strategy at the co-defendant's trial

was (1) to establish [the Petitioner's] guilt in committing the Taco Bell robbery and murders by using many of the same witnesses and much of the same evidence that the prosecution used at [the Petitioner's] trial and (2) to establish [the co-defendant's] guilt in the same crimes by using his written statement, which placed him with [the Petitioner] as a lookout on the night of the killings, and with the testimony of several corroborating witnesses.

Id. at 484. Following the conclusion of the evidence, the jury found the co-defendant guilty of four counts of felony murder and imposed a punishment of life imprisonment. The trial court ordered that those life sentences be served consecutively to one another.²

The Petitioner's case languished in the trial court for over nine years before the motion for new trial was adjudicated in March 2005. Accordingly, we feel a review ofthe procedural history post-trial is in order. On September 12, 1996, the Petitioner's motion for new trial, in which he alleged seventeen grounds for relief, was filed. The issues were bare allegations contained in one sentence, without argument, and without citation to any legal authority. Filed contemporaneously with the motion for new trial were motions to stay the proceedings until a trial transcript could be prepared and for leave to allow amendments to the motion for new trial after preparation of the transcript. The trial court ordered that "a complete transcript of all pretrial, jury selection and trial proceedings be prepared" and granted the Petitioner's motion for leave to amend. A hearing was originally scheduled on October 17, 1996, but the trial court's docket on that day showed that the motion was "stri[c]ken." A notation in the trial court's docket next to the October 17, 1996 entry, states, "ordered transcript 11-6-03."

In October 2000, associate counsel³ filed a motion to withdraw, wherein he noted that the Administrative Office of the Courts ("AOC") would no longer pay for two attorneys to represent the Petitioner because it was "no longer a capital case," before stating that lead counsel had "returned to the United States" and could represent the Petitioner's "interests regarding the pending motion for new trial and any appeal that might follow." Associate counsel was granted permission to withdraw on October 23, 2000. No new counsel was appointed, and lead counsel remained counsel of record. Throughout this time, no attempts were made to revive or otherwise pursue the Petitioner's motion for new trial.

On April 29, 2003, associate counsel was "reappointed to represent the [Petitioner] to the conclusion of all trial court matters." On October 9, 2003, a joint motion between associate counsel and the Petitioner was prepared and served on the State "to reschedule" the motion for new trial hearing, which was set, according to the motion, for October 16, 2003. The hearing was rescheduled for December 11, 2003; on that day, it was reset for January 13, 2004, in order to allow the State time to file a response and the Petitioner to amend the motion for new trial.

Thereafter, the Petitioner filed an amended motion for new trial on January 8, 2004, which added five additional grounds for relief. Again, the issues were merely bare allegations of one sentence each without legal argument or citation to authority. Moreover, three of the five were merely restatements of issues raised in the original 1996 motion for new trial. The two new issues raised in the amended motion were sufficiency of the evidence and the trial court's sua sponte issuance of a jury instruction on criminal responsibility after the jury had already begun deliberations. Also, on January 8, 2004, a waiver from the Petitioner was filed. In the document, the Petitioner waived the following:

[T]he [Petitioner] has been advised he has the right to be transported . . . for the purpose of attending the [m]otion for [n]ew [t]rial which has previously been filed on his behalf. Having been advised of this right, [the Petitioner] waives his right to be present, and requests the [m]otion be heard in his absence.

The State's response to the Petitioner's amended motion for new trial, which included detailed legal argument, was filed on January 12, 2004. In the State's response, it was argued that the trial court had lost jurisdiction to hear the Petitioner's motion for new trial when it was stricken on October 17, 1996, and that the Petitioner had abandoned any timely pursuit of said motion. On January 23, 2004, the Petitioner's "response to the State's petition" that the trial court was "without jurisdiction to hear" the amended motion for new trial was filed. The next document in the record was a March 24, 2004 order designating the case as extended and complex for purposes of Rule 13, Tennessee Rules of the Supreme Court. Thereafter, almost another entire year elapsed before the trial court's order denying the Petitioner's motion for new trial was filed on March 15, 2005.

In the order, the trial court stated that the "matter was submitted on briefs in December 2003." The trial court included a footnote in the order indicating that the status of preparation of the transcript in the Petitioner's case was still unknown to the trial court. The trial court noted, "It appears the co-defendant . . . pursued his appeal and[,] in so doing[,] raised issues of collateral estoppel with reference to the [Petitioner's] case. At that time, [the co-defendant's] counsel obtained a transcript of [the Petitioner's] trial proceedings. Shortly thereafter, the amended motion for new trial was filed." The trial court then went on to restate the seventeen grounds listed in the Petitioner's motion for new trial and the five grounds added in the amended motion for new trial. The order was detailed and contained findings of fact and conclusions of law. The trial court found that the Petitioner's grounds did not entitle him to relief. Specifically, the trial court determined that the Petitioner's convictions were supported by sufficient evidence, reasoning that the

evidence was more than sufficient for the jury to conclude that the [Petitioner] gained access to the Taco Bell upon a false premise; that he retrieved items he previously placed in the ceiling of the men's restroom; that he blew open the

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