State v. Cauley
| Decision Date | 04 October 1993 |
| Citation | 863 S.W.2d 411 |
| Parties | STATE of Tennessee, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James Kelly CAULEY, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Charles W. Burson, Atty. Gen. and Reporter and Jerry L. Smith, Deputy Atty. Gen., Nashville, for plaintiff-appellee.
Michael R. Jones, Public Defender, Springfield, for defendant-appellant.
In this double murder case the Defendant, James Kelly Cauley, has appealed from the Court of Criminal Appeals' affirmance of his conviction on two counts of first-degree murder. We granted the Defendant's application for permission to appeal in order to review the validity of a search warrant issued and executed in Kentucky pursuant to an investigation into the murders being conducted by Tennessee law enforcement officials. As explained below, we hold that Tennessee law, not Kentucky law, controls the present controversy. We further find that, in cases such as this one, Tennessee law enforcement officials should have the opportunity to present extrinsic proof in Tennessee suppression hearings to support search warrants issued at the request of Tennessee officials in other states in conformity with that state's law.
The record in this case, as accredited by the jury's verdict, see State v. Williams, 657 S.W.2d 405, 410 (Tenn.1983) (), establishes that in May, 1988, the Defendant and his older brother, Larry Glenn Cauley, Jr., sold stolen cattle to Wayne Tinnon, a cattle dealer. Tinnon paid for the cattle in cash, at which time the Defendant discovered that Tinnon carried substantial sums of money on his person when he purchased cattle. Tinnon subsequently agreed to help David Mandrell, a detective with the Sumner County Sheriff's Department, investigate the sale of the stolen cattle.
The Defendant and his brother arranged a bogus cattle sale with Tinnon to be held on June 28, 1988, at 10 a.m., on a remote farm which had been leased by the Cauley family for several years. This farm was located in Tennessee, just south of the Kentucky-Tennessee border in Robertson County. The Defendant lived with his parents in their home in Kentucky, approximately three miles from the farm where the purported sale was to take place. On the evening of June 27, the day before the arranged sale, Tinnon contacted Detective Mandrell and informed him of the sale planned for the following morning. The two men agreed to meet at 9:30 the next morning, June 28, at a specified location and then proceed together to the desolate farm to meet with the Defendant and his brother.
Tinnon and Mandrell met as planned at 9:30 a.m. on June 28, and then traveled in Tinnon's vehicle to the Cauley farm. Upon arriving, they parked near a barn. Tinnon and the Defendant's brother waited outside the barn while Mandrell entered the barn where the Defendant was waiting. When Mandrell walked past a stall where the Defendant was located, the Defendant shot him first in the back and then in the head with a .30-06 rifle he had previously taken from his father's home. The Defendant's brother then shot Tinnon, who was still outside of the barn, in the back with a .32 caliber pistol, which had also been taken from the Defendant's father's house by the Defendant. When Tinnon attempted to run away after the first shot, he was shot four additional times. The two dead victims were then robbed of their wallets and any money in their possession. The rifle shots were heard by a farmer over a mile away at approximately 10 a.m. Witnesses placed the brothers near the farm shortly before and after the shots were heard. The rifle and pistol, which belonged to the Defendant's father, were shown at trial to have been the murder weapons. The Defendant's prints were found on both guns. The bodies of Tinnon and Mandrell were discovered later in the day when Mandrell failed to report in. While awaiting trial for the murders of Tinnon and Mandrell, the Defendant admitted to a cellmate that he and his brother killed the men, and also volunteered numerous details about the crimes. He also bragged that a jury would never convict him.
The Defendant was convicted by a jury of two counts of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to consecutive life terms for the crimes. The Defendant has appealed to this Court, raising several issues, including the sufficiency of the search warrant which formed the basis of the search of the Defendant's father's home in Kentucky where the Defendant was living. The two murder weapons were found in that search. We granted review to address the search warrant issue.
Approximately one week after the murders, on July 5, 1988, an agent with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation sought and obtained a Kentucky search warrant to search the home of the Defendant's parents in Kentucky. The Defendant lived at that residence. In obtaining the search warrant, the TBI agent submitted his affidavit to a Kentucky judge. The affidavit states in part:
AFFIDAVIT FOR SEARCH WARRANT
COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
The affiant ..., Special Agent for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, having been first duly sworn states that he has reasonable and probable grounds to believe, and that he does verily believe, that a .30-06 caliber rifle and a .32 caliber pistol and ammunition and spent shell casings therefor are now on the premises known as the residence of Larry G. Cauley, Sr., and numbered as 1189 Minnicks-Johnson Road, Franklin, Simpson County, Kentucky
....
Affiant states that there is probable and reasonable cause to believe, and that the affiant does believe, that the aforementioned weapons constitute evidence which tends to show that a crime has been committed by the use of said weapons and that a particular person or persons has committed the crime of murder by the use of those weapons.
Affiant has been an officer in the aforementioned agency for a period of four years and the information and observations contained herein were received and made in his capacity as an officer thereof.
On June 28, 1988, Officer David Mandrell of the Sumner County Sheriff's Office, and Wayne Tinnon, a private individual, were murdered by gunshot wounds from a .30-06 rifle and a .32 caliber pistol. Pursuant to a continuing investigation, Officer David Mandrell advised other officers that he and Tinnon were scheduled to meet with Larry Glen Cauley, Jr., and perhaps others at a designated location in Robertson County, Tennessee. David Mandrell was last seen alive at 9:30 a.m. on June 28, 1988. David Mandrell and Wayne Tinnon were found murdered in Robertson County, Tennessee, at approximately 5:30 p.m. on June 28, 1988. A witness whose identity is known to this affiant saw an automobile known to belong to Larry G. Cauley, Jr., arrive at the residence of Larry G. Cauley, Sr., between 9:45 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. on June 28, 1988. An occupant of the vehicle left the vehicle, entered the residence of Larry G. Cauley, Sr., above-described, remained for approximately one minute to five minutes and returned to the vehicle, which then departed. The affiant has on this date interviewed Larry G. Cauley, Sr., who has admitted owning a .30-06 rifle and a .32 caliber pistol. The residence of Larry G. Cauley, Sr., is located a short distance from the scene where the bodies of Mandrell and Tinnon were discovered.
Your affiant has reasonable and probable cause to believe that the weapons used in the murder of Mandrell and Tinnon are the weapons owned by the said Larry G. Cauley, Sr., and that said weapons are presently situated on or about the above-described premises. On the basis of the foregoing information, this affiant requests that a search warrant be issued....
Based upon this affidavit, the Kentucky judge issued a search warrant for the Cauley residence in Kentucky, ordering Kentucky law enforcement officials to seize the .30-06 rifle and the .32 caliber pistol and turn them over to the TBI agent. The search itself was conducted by officers from the Robertson County Sheriff's Department (the murders occurred in Robertson County), the TBI, and Kentucky law enforcement personnel. The .30-06 rifle used to kill Mandrell was discovered in the Defendant's bedroom and the .32 caliber pistol used to kill Tinnon was found in another bedroom. Both weapons belonged to the Defendant's father, and both weapons contained the Defendant's fingerprints. The Defendant told a cellmate that he had taken the guns from his father's home, used them to kill Tinnon and Mandrell, and then returned them to his father's house after the murders.
The Defendant moved to suppress the murder weapons discovered in the search of his parents' home in Kentucky pursuant to the Kentucky search warrant obtained by Tennessee authorities. The trial court, applying Tennessee law, held, after a suppression hearing, that the affidavit was sufficient to support the search warrant. The Court of Criminal Appeals, applying Kentucky law, found that the affidavit established probable cause for the issuance of the search warrant. The decision of the Court of Criminal Appeals was released prior to this Court's decisions in Dillon v. State, 844 S.W.2d 139 (Tenn.1992) and State v. Hudson, 849 S.W.2d 309 (Tenn.1993), which are discussed below.
The Defendant claims, based upon Dillon (and presumably Hudson ), that the search warrant should be analyzed under the stricter search and seizure standards of Tennessee law, not Kentucky law. More particularly, he claims three specific deficiencies in the affidavit supporting the warrant. First, he alleges that the identification of the murder weapons in the affidavit is a baseless conclusion of fact by the TBI agent. Stated another way, he says that the TBI agent had an insufficient basis for concluding that the murder weapons were a .30-06...
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