State Of Tenn. v. Cooper
| Decision Date | 21 September 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. E2008-02044-SC-R11-CD.,E2008-02044-SC-R11-CD. |
| Citation | 321 S.W.3d 501 |
| Parties | STATE of Tennessee v. Ralph Byrd COOPER, Jr. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
321 S.W.3d 501
STATE of Tennessee
v.
Ralph Byrd COOPER, Jr.
No. E2008-02044-SC-R11-CD.
Supreme Court of Tennessee,at Knoxville.
May 5, 2010 Session.
Sept. 21, 2010.
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED.
Mart S. Cizek, Clinton, Tennessee, for the appellant, Ralph Byrd Cooper, Jr.
Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter; Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General; and Rachel West Harmon, Assistant Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.
JANICE M. HOLDER, C.J.
The defendant appeals his conviction for aggravated rape and his sentence as a repeat violent offender. We hold that the evidence is sufficient to support the defendant's conviction and that the trial court did not err in relying on a certified judgment of another state's court to determine beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is a repeat violent offender pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-120. We conclude, however, that the State failed to comply with the notice requirements set forth in section 40-35-120(i)(2) and that the defendant's sentence as a repeat violent offender therefore constitutes plain error. We affirm in part and reverse in part the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals and remand the case to the trial court for a new sentencing hearing.
On April 1, 2003, an Anderson County grand jury indicted the defendant, Ralph Byrd Cooper, Jr., for aggravated rape and aggravated assault. 1 The State of Tennessee subsequently filed a “Notice of Intention to Use Prior Bad Acts for Impeachment and Enhancement of Sentence” on May 12, 2003. In pertinent part, the document states, “The State gives notice of defendant's prior convictions,” and lists “Sodomy (felony) 3 counts” as a prior conviction of Mr. Cooper in the circuit court in Klamath Falls, Oregon. The notice does not mention Mr. Cooper's status as a repeat violent offender. The case proceeded to trial in the Criminal Court of Anderson County on June 8 and 9, 2006.
According to the victim's testimony at trial, she met Mr. Cooper while cruising in a Walmart parking lot in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in December 2002. They later exchanged telephone numbers. On another occasion, the victim and Mr. Cooper visited his mother's house, where he lived in a basement apartment.
On January 29, 2003, the victim called Mr. Cooper to ask if she and her friend could “hang out” with him. The victim and her friend went to Mr. Cooper's apartment. After spending some time there, they left with Mr. Cooper in his truck to buy alcohol. While riding around, the victim drank both beer and Jack Daniel's. They later went to a party.
The victim testified that she did not remember leaving the party because she was intoxicated. She woke up in Mr. Cooper's bed. Mr. Cooper was on top of her, and they were both naked. He had his hands around her throat, and he threatened
to kill her if she screamed. He attempted to have intercourse with her. She told him to stop. He left the room to obtain a lubricant. When he returned, he penetrated her vagina. They both fell asleep.
When the victim woke up in the morning, she hugged Mr. Cooper at his request and then left the house. Later that day, she reported the incident to the police. Photographs taken that day by the police show red marks on her neck and scratches on her face. Mr. Cooper's defense at trial was that his sexual acts with the victim were consensual. After hearing the evidence, a jury found Mr. Cooper guilty of aggravated rape.
On June 21, 2006, the State filed a “Sentencing Position” in which it asserted that the conviction placed Mr. Cooper in the category of a “repeat violent offender” requiring a sentence of “imprisonment for life without possibility of parole” pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-120 (2006), commonly referred to as the “three strikes” law. 2 The State based this assertion on the notice “furnished ... on May 12, 2003[,] that it would use prior sodomy convictions in Oregon in 1995 for sentencing purposes.”
Mr. Cooper did not object at the sentencing hearing to the timing of the State's notice of his status as a repeat violent offender. The trial court raised the issue sua sponte and concluded that Mr. Cooper had not shown that he was prejudiced by deficiencies in the State's notice. On finding beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Cooper was a repeat violent offender, the trial court imposed the mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole pursuant to section 40-35-120(g). Mr. Cooper included the notice issue in his amended motion for new trial but did not raise the issue on appeal. The Court of Criminal Appeals, however, considered whether the post-verdict filing of the notice constituted plain error. See Tenn. R.App. P. 36(b) (allowing appellate courts to raise issues sua sponte affecting the substantial rights of a party). The intermediate appellate court held that the May 12, 2003 filing did not comply with the notice requirements of Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-120(i)(2) but that the requirements of plain error were not met. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that the “otherwise-reversible error's effect, if any, on the defendant is not clear from the record.” The intermediate appellate court suggested that Mr. Cooper might be able to establish the prejudice necessary to challenge his conviction during post-conviction proceedings if he could prove that he was unaware of the State's intent to pursue sentencing as a repeat violent offender and that he would have accepted the six-year plea offer mentioned during Mr. Cooper's Momon hearing. See Momon v. State, 18 S.W.3d 152, 162 (Tenn.1999).
We granted Mr. Cooper's application for permission to appeal.
Mr. Cooper raises three issues on appeal, and we address them in the following order. Mr. Cooper first challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction for aggravated rape. He next asserts that the trial court did not properly determine that he was a repeat violent
offender pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-120(g). Finally, Mr. Cooper appeals the determination of the Court of Criminal Appeals regarding the State's notice of his status as a repeat violent offender.
Because the guilty verdict removed Mr. Cooper's presumption of innocence and replaced it with a presumption of guilt, Mr. Cooper bears the burden of demonstrating why the evidence presented at trial is insufficient to support the verdict. See State v. Evans, 108 S.W.3d 231, 237 (Tenn.2003). We must reject Mr. Cooper's challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence if, after considering the evidence in a light most favorable to the State, we determine that any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 318-19, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); State v. Hall, 8 S.W.3d 593, 599 (Tenn.1999). Mr. Cooper was convicted of aggravated rape, which is defined as “unlawful sexual penetration of a victim by the defendant” accompanied by the defendant's causing bodily injury to the victim. Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-502(a)(2) (2006).
By convicting Mr. Cooper, the jury credited the victim's testimony that Mr. Cooper choked her, that he had vaginal sex with her against her will, that she told him to stop and that he was hurting her, and that she believed that he would kill her if she did not cooperate. We are without authority to re-weigh the victim's testimony. Evans, 108 S.W.3d at 236. Additionally, police photographs of...
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