State v. Blye
| Decision Date | 25 February 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. E2001-01227-SC-R11-CD.,E2001-01227-SC-R11-CD. |
| Citation | 130 S.W.3d 776 |
| Parties | STATE of Tennessee v. Allen Prentice BLYE. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Kenneth F. Irvine, Jr., and Julie A. Rice, Knoxville, Tennessee (on appeal); Terry Jordan, Assistant Public Defender, Blountville, Tennessee (at trial and on appeal); and Mark Toohey, Kingsport, Tennessee (at trial), for the appellant, Allen Prentice Blye.
Paul G. Summers, Attorney General and Reporter; Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General; Mark A. Fulks, Assistant Attorney General; H. Greeley Wells, Jr., District Attorney General; and Joseph E. Perrin, Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.
ADOLPHO A. BIRCH, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which FRANK F. DROWOTA, III, C.J., and E. RILEY ANDERSON, JANICE M. HOLDER, and WILLIAM M. BARKER, JJ., joined.
We granted permission to appeal in this case to consider whether the Sixth Amendment entitles the defendant to participate, through counsel, in the determination of the existence of probable cause for the issuance of a warrant to seize a sample of the defendant's blood. Because we find that the defendant has no such entitlement, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals.
On June 19, 1998, the victim, R.C.,1 was awakened when she felt someone in bed with her. The male attacker put his hands around her neck and began choking her. R.C. struggled with her attacker, and the two fell off the bed and onto the floor, with the victim landing on her stomach and the man landing on her back. Reaching back, R.C. felt some type of soft fabric covering his head. The attacker forcibly removed R.C.'s panties, pulled his pants down, and penetrated her. Afterwards, he put a pillowcase over her head and dragged her into the bathroom. The attacker filled the sink with hot water and tried to force the victim to sit in the sink. When she resisted, he put her on the floor and attempted to rinse her genital area with water from the sink. After the attacker had left the bathroom, R.C. escaped through the bathroom window and went to a neighbor's residence. The neighbor called the police.
R.C. never saw her attacker's face. She noticed, however, that he was wearing loose-fitting gloves, and she estimated that he was approximately five feet, ten inches to six feet tall. She also stated that she had smelled the odor of gasoline or kerosene about him.
When the police arrived at the scene, they found a pair of nylon jogging pants in R.C.'s kitchen sink, with water running over them. The pants, which were not the victim's, were later determined to have gasoline and kerosene on them.
R.C. was taken to the hospital where medical personnel performed a rape kit examination. The treating physician testified that R.C. had bruises on her neck, a larger bruise on her left buttock, and abrasions on her left flank. Police collected the articles that R.C. had worn during the attack.
In January 1999, the Sullivan County Grand Jury issued a presentment charging the defendant, Allen Prentice Blye, with aggravated burglary and aggravated rape. Counsel was appointed to represent the defendant. In July 1999, the State filed a motion in the Criminal Court for Sullivan County, Second Judicial Circuit, seeking a search warrant to obtain a blood sample from the defendant to conduct DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) testing. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied the State's motion, finding that the State had failed to establish probable cause for the issuance of the search warrant. The State filed a supplemental motion in April 2000 in which it alleged that since the trial court's earlier ruling denying the State's request, the State had obtained additional evidence that would establish probable cause for the issuance of a search warrant to obtain a blood sample.
The criminal case was assigned to Judge R. Jerry Beck in the Criminal Court for Sullivan County, Second Judicial District. After the district attorney had filed the supplemental motion in that court, but before that motion was scheduled for a hearing, the police investigator sought to obtain a search warrant from Judge Lynn Brown, a judge in the First Judicial District.2 The affidavit submitted by the investigator to Judge Brown stated, in pertinent part:
[a]s part of this investigation, it was learned that the defendant had contacted a friend, Deborah McDowell, and had corresponded with her by letters, with the purpose of having her contact the victim for him. On February 28, 2000, I [the investigating detective] went to the Tennessee Prison [f]or Women, in Nashville and interviewed Ms. McDowell. During this interview, she advised that she still had a letter and envelope sent to her by the defendant. She voluntarily released these items to me, and I took them to the TBI Lab. I submitted the envelope for analysis, and saliva was found. DNA, isolated and analyzed from the saliva, was compared to the DNA profile of the seminal fluid [recovered from the rape kit and from the tee shirt worn by the victim on the night she was raped]. The results of this test revealed that the saliva, from the envelope, had the same profile as the seminal fluid, recovered from the scene of the rape. The odds of it being someone unrelated would be beyond the known population of the world.
This letter was sent to Ms. McDowell, and contained the return address belonging to [the defendant], and the handwriting was confirmed by Ms. McDowell as belonging to [the defendant]. Your affiant is presently aware of [the defendant's] address and of his handwriting, both matching what is displayed on the envelope. Your affiant has probable cause to believe that [the defendant] sent this letter to Ms. McDowell, and that the saliva recovered from the envelope is his. Your affiant also has probable cause to believe that the blood of [the defendant] will be matched, by DNA, to the seminal fluid left by the rapist.
Based upon the affidavit, Judge Brown issued a search warrant authorizing the taking of a blood sample from the defendant. The investigator then went to the Northeast State Correctional Facility in Johnson County, where the defendant was incarcerated. The investigator, along with one or more correctional officers, met with the defendant in the prison infirmary. After the defendant refused to submit to the drawing of blood, the investigator returned to Judge Brown, who then authorized the taking of a blood sample "by whatever means may be necessary or by any necessary restraint." The investigator returned to the Northeast State Correctional Facility. The investigator and the prison warden informed the defendant that the judge had authorized the use of force, if necessary, to obtain a blood sample. The defendant then agreed to submit to the drawing of blood, but only after signing a handwritten document stating that he was doing so "under duress." Medical personnel obtained the blood sample from the defendant.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) analyzed the defendant's blood sample and determined that the defendant's DNA matched the DNA found in the seminal fluid recovered from the rape examination of the victim and from the victim's tee shirt. In September 2000, the defendant filed a motion to suppress the DNA evidence obtained pursuant to the search warrant issued by Judge Brown. He argued that the ex parte procedure used to obtain the search warrant violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The trial court denied the motion to suppress, and the DNA proof subsequently was introduced into evidence at trial.
A jury convicted the defendant of aggravated burglary and aggravated rape. The trial court sentenced him as a Range III, persistent offender to fifteen years imprisonment for the aggravated burglary conviction, and as a Range II, violent offender to forty years imprisonment for the aggravated rape conviction. The trial court ordered that the sentences be served consecutively, for an effective sentence of fifty-five years. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the trial court's judgment, concluding, in part, that the defendant was not entitled to notice and a hearing before the search warrant was issued. The defendant, acting pro se, filed an application for permission to appeal to this Court pursuant to Rule 11 of the Tennessee Rules of Appellate Procedure. We granted permission to appeal3 in this case to consider whether the Sixth Amendment entitles the defendant to participate, through counsel, in the determination of the existence of probable cause for the issuance of a warrant to seize a sample of the defendant's blood.
The facts concerning the issuance and execution of the search warrant are not in dispute; instead, the issue presented—whether the Sixth Amendment entitles the defendant to an adversarial hearing on the issuance of the search warrant—is a question of law. We review questions of law de novo with no presumption of correctness given to the lower courts. State v. Turco, 108 S.W.3d 244, 246 (Tenn. 2003).
The defendant contends that because his Sixth Amendment right to counsel4 had attached at the time the presentment was returned, the ex parte application for and the issuance of the search warrant violated his Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel. Both the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution5 and Article I, Section 9 of the Tennessee Constitution6 guarantee the right to assistance of counsel at "critical stages" of the prosecution "where counsel's absence might derogate from the accused's right to a fair trial." State v. Martin, 950 S.W.2d 20, 25 (Tenn. 1997) (quoting United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 226, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149, (1967)). The constitutional right to assistance of counsel attaches at the time adversarial judicial proceedings are initiated against the defendant....
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