State v. Cobb
| Decision Date | 26 March 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. W2011-02437-CCA-R3-CD,W2011-02437-CCA-R3-CD |
| Parties | STATE OF TENNESSEE v. JASON ALLEN COBB |
| Court | Court of Appeals of Tennessee. Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee |
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Hardeman County
J. Weber McCraw, Judge
A Hardeman County jury convicted appellant, Jason Allen Cobb, of second degree murder. The trial court sentenced him to twenty-three years in the Tennessee Department of Correction. On appeal, appellant contends that (1) the trial court erred in admitting improper character evidence; (2) a witness's false testimony violated his right to a fair trial; (3) the State engaged in prosecutorial misconduct; (4) the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction; and (5) the trial court erred in ordering him to serve his sentence in this case consecutively to his sentence in another case. Upon review of the record, the parties' briefs, and applicable law, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.
Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Circuit Court Affirmed
ROGER A. PAGE, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which JOHN EVERETT WILLIAMS and JEFFREY S. BIVINS, JJ., joined.
Gary F. Antrican, District Public Defender; and Shana Johnson and Parker O. Dixon, Assistant District Public Defenders, Somerville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Jason Allen Cobb.
Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter; Jeffrey D. Zentner, Assistant Attorney General; D. Michael Dunavant; District Attorney General; and Joe Van Dyke and Katie Walsh, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.
OPINIONA Hardeman County Grand jury indicted appellant, who was an inmate at the Hardeman County Correctional Facility, for second degree murder based on the death ofanother inmate in April 2010. The trial court presided over a jury trial on May 17-18, 2011, at which the parties presented the following evidence:
Correctional Officer Larry Cheairs testified that his April 19, 2010 shift at Hardeman County Correctional Facility began at 7:00 p.m. and ended at 7:00 a.m. He was responsible for three of the prison pods and made rounds about eight times a night. Officer Cheairs described his duties as counting the inmates and monitoring the inmates for any illegal activities. He identified appellant in the courtroom and stated that he had known appellant's cellmate, Ricky Gardner, the deceased victim. He testified that the last time he saw the victim alive was around 2:00 a.m. on April 20, 2010. The victim was pacing back and forth inside the cell, and appellant appeared to be asleep on his bunk. At the next check, which was between 4:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., Officer Cheairs stated that appellant and the victim were in their bunks. Officer Cheairs testified that between cell checks, he did not see or hear anything to alert him to any disturbance in appellant's cell.
On cross-examination, Officer Cheairs stated that on April 19, 2010, his count of twenty cells took "about two or three minutes." He explained that his count consisted of his walking by and flashing his flashlight into the cell. When informed that the video recorded his count at one minute and twenty-two seconds, Officer Cheairs replied, "Yeah, it's possible[,] but I don't think that I would walk through that fast." When asked if he would have had much time to observe people moving around, Officer Cheairs replied, "When you're looking in their face, you would." He also said, "[The victim] was coming to the door when I walked through." Officer Cheairs also testified that he did not remember seeing a television in the cell. He further stated that he was no longer employed at the Hardeman County Correctional Facility.
On redirect examination, Officer Cheairs explained that the control booth kept the time log of his cell inspections and stated, "I just did my check." He again confirmed that the victim was alive when he checked on him at 2:00 a.m. On recross-examination, Officer Cheairs admitted that the control booth video kept the time and would have to be relied upon as the correct time.
The trial court accepted Dr. Lisa Funte, a medical examiner for the Shelby County Regional Forensic Center in Memphis, as an expert witness in the field of pathology. Dr. Funte testified that she conducted the autopsy of the victim. Dr. Funte identified the investigative report, autopsy report, toxicology report, and diagrams and photographs from the autopsy. They were admitted into evidence. She outlined her office's procedure for receiving a body, conducting an external examination, photographing evidence, and, if needed, collecting evidence. Dr. Funte found external and internal injuries to the victim's neck area consisting of red discoloration and hemorrhage in muscles in the front of the neckand in the deep soft tissue of the neck. She also found petechial hemorrhages, which she described as "a bunch of little red hemorrhages" in the membrane that covers the eye, called the conjunctiva. In addition, the fingernail on the victim's right index finger had been pulled back from the nail bed, and there was blood underneath. Dr. Funte testified that based on her investigation and observation, she found the cause of death to be manual strangulation and the manner of death to be a homicide.
On cross-examination, Dr. Funte noted that the victim's body was in an early state of decomposition, which could be attributed to the victim's being dead "a day or two," being sick at the time of his death, or being in a warm room. She testified that the victim's injuries appeared to have been inflicted "from behind the individual with an arm bar, a choke hold[,] or something like that," which would be more consistent with her findings than a frontal assault with the hands. On redirect examination, Dr. Funte testified that her examination of the victim's body revealed no evidence of a struggle with another individual, and "[t]he only other injury on him was that broken [finger]nail."
Terrence Olridge, an employee at the Hardeman County Correctional Facility, testified that April 19, 2010,1 was his first day on the job at the correctional facility. He stated his shift began at 7:00 a.m. and ended at 7:00 p.m. Prior to his first official day, he was given about a week of floor training, which was "[p]retty much regular security checks, pat downs, . . . doing disciplinaries, and things of that matter." He was assigned to appellant's unit and remembered appellant and the victim. Officer Olridge testified that when he arrived for duty that morning, he performed security checks that consisted of walking around the pods looking for anything out of the ordinary such as covered windows, clotheslines, or assaults in progress. He stated that he was required to touch "a little silver place on the wall" to confirm his check. Officer Olridge explained that his next duty was a cell check during which he primarily looked for contraband such as weapons or cellular telephones. He testified that he usually conducted one contraband search per day, and his shift sergeant made the cell designation. He further testified that on April 19, 2010, he was assigned cell J-F 209, which was the cell of appellant and the victim.
Officer Olridge stated that he conducted the cell check of appellant and the victim around "nine, maybe 9:20, 9:30" a.m. He stated that during the cell check, an officer removed the inmates from the cell, then an officer searched "the bunks, the TVs, the clothing, the gray tubs they [had]." He recalled asking appellant and the victim to leave the cell and stated:
Well, I asked Cobb to step out, which he did, and he removed the stuff from the top window as he stepped out of the cell. Then I went in the cell, then I asked - I verbally told Mr. Cobb - his cellie, Gardner, to step out and he wasn't moving so I asked Mr. Cobb what was going on with that cellie and he told me he was asleep.
Officer Olridge testified that the victim did not respond when asked to leave, and he proceeded to conduct the search with the victim in the cell, which Officer Olridge admitted was not proper protocol. However, this was his first day on the job, and he was not aware of the rule. He recalled seeing appellant's "belongings" packed up and asked appellant where he was going. Appellant replied that he was going into protective custody. Officer Olridge stated that appellant never made any statements about any prior incidents with his cellmate occurring the night before. He stated that he did not hear any beating or banging, see any flashing lights, or notice anyone trying to get his attention on his rounds of the pod that morning. Upon learning of appellant's request for protective custody, Officer Olridge asked appellant to step back in the cell, and he proceeded to notify his unit manager of appellant's request. Officer Olridge further testified that he completed his inmate count at approximately 10:40 a.m. by accompanying Ellen Futrell and Case Manager Tenisha Douglas into appellant's cell and observing the same unchanged position of the victim.
On cross-examination, Officer Olridge admitted that he did not arrive for work until 7:00 a.m. and would not have witnessed any events of the previous early morning hours. Until being shown his statement to the Internal Affairs Investigator, Officer Olridge could not recall tapping the victim trying to awaken him. Officer Olridge stated he remembered appellant's telling him that the victim was asleep. He related that this occurred at about 9:00 a.m. Officer Olridge stated he did not hear anyone say anything about the victim's going to breakfast that morning. Officer Olridge testified that at about 9:35 a.m., he went to his unit manager, Officer Robinson, and informed her of appellant's request for protective services. Officer Olridge recalled that Officer Robinson, Ellen Futrell, and Ms. Douglas were in the cell with him when they discovered the deceased victim.
On redirect...
To continue reading
Request your trial