State v. Carter

• Decision Date: 19 May 2008
• Docket Number: No. M2005-02784-SC-R11-CD.,M2005-02784-SC-R11-CD.
• Citation: 254 S.W.3d 335
• Parties: STATE of Tennessee v. Stacey Joe CARTER.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

254 S.W.3d 335

STATE of Tennessee v. Stacey Joe CARTER.

No. M2005-02784-SC-R11-CD.

Supreme Court of Tennessee, at Nashville.

February 14, 2008 Session.

May 19, 2008.

Roger E. Nell, District Public Defender, Clarksville, Tennessee, and Charles S. Bloodworth, Sr., Asst. District Public Defender, Springfield, Tennessee, for the appellant, Stacey Joe Carter.

Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General & Reporter; Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General; Mark A. Fulks, Senior Counsel; John Wesley Carney, Jr., District Attorney General; Dent Morriss and Jason White, Asst. District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

CORNELIA A. CLARK, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which WILLIAM M. BARKER, C.J., and JANICE M. HOLDER, GARY R. WADE, and WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., JJ., joined.

OPINION

We granted the Defendant's application for permission to appeal in order to address how the 2005 revisions to the Criminal Sentencing Reform Act of 1989 impact the method of imposing a sentence. The Defendant was convicted by a jury of vehicular homicide and driving on a suspended license. The trial court sentenced the Defendant to serve ten years for the homicide and eleven months twenty-nine days for the driving offense, to be served concurrently. The trial court suspended both sentences. The State appealed, and the Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the trial court's judgment and modified the Defendant's homicide sentence to fifteen years to serve. We hold that the trial court committed no reversible error in sentencing the Defendant to ten years on the homicide offense, but did commit reversible error in placing the Defendant on probation. We reinstate the Defendant's ten-year sentence and order that it be served in the Department of Correction.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

As a preliminary matter, we note that the events leading up to the Defendant's prosecution began in the small town of Guthrie, Kentucky, located very near the Tennessee border and the Tennessee counties of Robertson and Montgomery. The unfortunate death of the victim occurred in Robertson County, Tennessee.

I. Trial

Ronnie Shaw testified that he lived in a Winnebago next to his sister Pamela Shaw's house in Guthrie, Kentucky. He was standing in the yard on the night of October 23, 2004, when Stacey Joe Carter ("the Defendant") pulled up driving a small red car. With the Defendant was "[s]upposedly . . . his nephew." The Defendant asked Mr. Shaw "where he could find thirty dollars worth of crack [cocaine]." Mr. Shaw replied, "no, not at this time." Mr. Shaw recalled that his sister, Pamela, and his niece then came out of the house and demanded that the Defendant leave. The Defendant left. Mr. Shaw saw him again ten to fifteen minutes later being followed by the police. According to Mr. Shaw, "They was [sic] behind him, they didn't put the lights on him until he hit State Street."

Pamela Shaw testified that she lived on Lizzie Dancy Street in Guthrie, Kentucky. Between 10:30 and 10:45 on the night of October 23, 2004, she saw the Defendant after he pulled into her driveway and she looked out her bedroom window. She stated that the Defendant was driving "a small red vehicle" and in the passenger seat was a "stocky built" male. Ms. Shaw knew the Defendant because they had attended the same elementary school in Guthrie. The Defendant had some words with her brother, Ronnie Shaw. Ms. Shaw's daughter went to the kitchen door and shouted at the Defendant, who then left. Ms. Shaw heard sirens a few minutes later.

Officer Matthew Dolezal of the Guthrie, Kentucky, Police Department testified that he was working as a narcotics officer on the night of October 23, 2004. With his Chief's permission, his wife was riding in his patrol car with him. He was driving down First Street in Guthrie when he saw a red Nissan Sentra in the vicinity of Merritt and First Street. The Nissan was parked and a black male was at the window. Officer Dolezal thought he recognized the black male. He approached the Nissan in his patrol car. The Nissan "rapidly accelerated in reverse and continued up the next block and hung a right." The Nissan continued in reverse for about 100 feet and the black male "took off running." Officer Dolezal accelerated in an attempt to catch up to the Nissan. The driver of the Nissan "started disregarding the stop signs throughout that city block." Officer Dolezal explained that the Nissan ran two stop signs, and he considered the car's operation "reckless." The Nissan turned onto Highway 41, the main road out of Guthrie.¹ Officer Dolezal testified that he "initiate[d][his] emergency equipment to make the traffic stop, establishing that this subject had recklessly endangered his passenger and was also breaking the law." The driver of the Nissan did not stop after Officer Dolezal turned on his blue lights. A few seconds later, Officer Dolezal turned on his video camera.

At this point, the Nissan was travelling between fifty-five and sixty miles per hour in a forty-five mile per hour zone. The Nissan was still in Kentucky but entered Tennessee in one to two hundred yards. Officer Dolezal testified, "The driver was weaving all over the road . . . going into opposing lanes of traffic and then doubling back." Officer Dolezal shone his spotlight on the car and described the occupants: "a heavy-set male [in] the passenger seat that had short hair and then there was another white male that had long hair, driving the vehicle."

Officer Dolezal radioed for back-up. Guthrie Police Department Officer Jeff Ford² joined in the chase and formed a "rolling road block" by getting in front of the Nissan. Although Officer Ford tried to slow the Nissan down, the officers were unable to stop it. Instead, as the three cars approached Mint Springs Road on the left, Officer Ford passed the road and the Nissan "took a hard turn left" onto Mint Springs Road. Officer Dolezal followed the Nissan. The Nissan "continued the same driving behavior, still going into opposing lanes of traffic, still failing to yield, continued driving somewhat more recklessly now that [they were] entering a curvy country road." Their speed continued to be "approximately maybe fifty-five, sixty." Officer Dolezal began to fall back, however, because he was not familiar with the road.

At the point that Mint Springs Road involves a set of double "S" curves, Officer Dolezal saw the Nissan's brake lights come on. Officer Dolezal stated that the driver "locked up the vehicle" and the driver "never even made the turn." Instead, the vehicle missed the curve leading into a bridge and "just went straight off." The Nissan went "over an embankment and . . . landed upside down in a river."

Officer Dolezal stated that, when he looked over the bridge, he saw the Defendant in the water. Officer Ford got in the water and yelled at the Defendant to come help him with the passenger in the Nissan. According to Officer Dolezal, the Defendant replied, "[F]____k you," and "continued to walk underneath the bridge in this water." Officer Ford began trying to break into the Nissan but was not successful. Meanwhile, the Defendant climbed an embankment up to the road where Officer Dolezal took custody of him at gunpoint. After he was handcuffed, the Defendant advised Officer Dolezal that it was his nephew in the Nissan.

After Officer Dolezal placed him in custody, the Defendant was transferred to the Tennessee Highway Patrol ("THP") because he was in their jurisdiction. The ensuing investigation was also handled by the THP.

Officer Ford testified that he responded to a "back up" request from Officer Dolezal as Officer Dolezal was trying to pull the Nissan over in Guthrie. He caught up with Officer Dolezal and then passed the Nissan in order to create a "rolling road block." Officer Ford had managed to slow the speed of the three vehicles "quite considerably" when he passed a road on the left. The Defendant turned suddenly onto the road. Officer Ford made a U-turn and then "got in behind Officer Dolezal." All three vehicles were in Tennessee at this point.

Officer Ford described his speed after he got behind Officer Dolezal as "about fifty-five, sixty maximum there towards the end." Officer Ford arrived at the scene just after the Defendant's car left the road and went into the water. Officer Ford ran down the embankment and saw the Defendant "finally emerge from the water, from the driver's side of the car." Officer Ford pulled his weapon but the Defendant ran away from him to the other side of the bridge. Officer Ford kept yelling at the Defendant to stop. The Defendant turned around and said, "my nephew is still in the car." The Defendant continued to move away from the car, "yelled some profanities," and then went underneath the bridge. Officer Ford lost sight of the Defendant.

Officer Ford then waded into the water to the car in an attempt to rescue the Defendant's nephew. The water reached to just underneath Officer Ford's chin. He tried to open the passenger door but could not. He moved to the driver's side where the door was open. He tried to get into the car but because the roof was crushed, he "couldn't get too far into it." He did not find the Defendant's nephew. He and another officer who had entered the water tried unsuccessfully to break the passenger door window.

Steven Ellis of the Guthrie Volunteer Fire Department testified that he responded to the scene.³ He stated that the windows of the Nissan were all up and the door they were trying to open was locked. The windows were under water. One of the responders broke a window with an axe and they were then able to open one of the doors. Emergency response personnel were then able to recover the passenger from the Nissan. He was deceased. Officer Dolezal described the body as a "[v]ery large male . . . of a younger appearance . . . approximately six foot, three hundred plus, short brown hair."

THP Trooper Kenneth Harrison also responded to...