State v. Copeland

• Decision Date: 23 May 2007
• Docket Number: No. E2002-01123-SC-DDT-DD.,E2002-01123-SC-DDT-DD.
• Citation: 226 S.W.3d 287
• Parties: STATE of Tennessee v. Arthur T. COPELAND.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

226 S.W.3d 287

STATE of Tennessee v. Arthur T. COPELAND.

No. E2002-01123-SC-DDT-DD.

Supreme Court of Tennessee, at Knoxville.

January 3, 2007 Session.

May 23, 2007.

Robert E. Cooper, Attorney General and Reporter; Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General; Alice B. Lustre, Assistant Attorney General; Michael L. Flynn, District Attorney General; and Kirk Andrews and Edward P. Bailey, Jr., Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellant, the State of Tennessee.

Randall E. Reagan and Gerald L. Gulley, Jr., Knoxville, Tennessee (on appeal); and W. Phillip Reed and Robert W. White, Maryville, Tennessee (at trial), for the appellee, Arthur T. Copeland.

OPINION

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

The Defendant, Arthur T. Copeland, was convicted of one count of first degree murder and sentenced to death. The jury found a single aggravating circumstance, that the Defendant previously had been convicted of one or more felonies involving violence to the person, see Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-204(i)(2) (1997), and further found that the aggravating circumstance outweighed the mitigating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt, see Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-204(g)(1) (1997). The Court of Criminal Appeals held that the trial court properly excluded expert testimony on eyewitness identification but committed plain error by failing to conduct a hearing pursuant to Momon v. State, 18 S.W.3d 152, 157 (Tenn.1999), and ordered a remand for a determination of whether the error was harmless. Further, the Court of Criminal Appeals set aside the sentence of death as disproportionate. We granted the State's application for permission to appeal in order to resolve the dispositive issues. We first hold that the trial court erred by prohibiting the Defendant from offering expert testimony regarding eyewitness testimony and overrule State v. Coley, 32 S.W.3d 831 (Tenn.2000). Because the exclusion of the testimony cannot be classified as harmless under these circumstances, the Defendant must be granted a new trial. Although the trial court failed to conduct a Momon hearing, consideration of that issue is not necessary because of the grant of a new trial. Finally, we conclude that the Court of Criminal Appeals erred by finding that the death sentence was disproportionate; thus the State may choose to seek the death penalty upon remand. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals is affirmed in part, reversed in part, and the cause is remanded for a new trial.

Factual and Procedural Background

On April 7, 1998, the victim, Andre Jackson, was shot to death in Maryville, Tennessee. The shooting was apparently in response to the rape of Lynn Porter ("Porter"), the girlfriend of Reginald Stacy Sudderth ("Sudderth"). After learning of the rape, Sudderth purportedly offered a $10,000 "bounty" for the death of the perpetrator and warned, "[S]omeone is going to die tonight." There was evidence that the Defendant expressed an interest in the reward money and accompanied Sudderth and others to Maryville in search of the victim, whom they believed to be responsible for the rape. According to one State witness, the Defendant entered the victim's residence and ordered him outside. Moments later, the victim reentered the house, collapsed from gunshot wounds, and died. In the course of a lengthy trial over an eight-day period with contested factual and witness credibility issues, the Defendant claimed that he was mistakenly identified and suggested that Chris Knighton ("Knighton") was the perpetrator of the crime.

I. Evidence at the Guilt Phase

In its proof-in-chief, the State established that some ten months prior to the shooting, Edna Delapp ("Delapp"),¹ a white female and the mother of the victim's girlfriend, Stephanie Delapp, had allowed the victim, a black male, to move into her residence in an effort to help him get his life "back on track." On the day of the rape, Delapp was off from work. During the afternoon, the victim briefly introduced her to Knighton, a black male, before the two men left the residence. At 11:30 p.m., the victim returned in the company of Delapp's daughter. Less than three hours later, Delapp was awakened by a "very insistent pounding" at the front door. She looked out her bedroom window but saw no cars in the driveway. When she walked to the front door and peered through its glass panes, however, she saw a black male she believed to be Knighton. She opened the door, and the man entered and asked to talk to the victim.

As the two walked through the hallway, Delapp, whose identification testimony was a crucial component of the State's theory, decided the visitor was not Knighton but she nevertheless opened the door leading down to the victim's room and called out his name. When there was no response, the man expressed his intention to "go get" the victim and walked down the stairwell into the victim's room. Delapp briefly returned to her bedroom, again looked out the window, and saw no one. By then, she saw the victim in the hallway followed by the visitor. She described the visitor as wearing dark clothing and having "really weird hair" with "little twisted ponytails." When the two men walked out the front door, Delapp, who had observed the visitor for only "seconds," returned to her bedroom window, again looked outside, but saw nothing. A few moments later, however, she heard shots and glass shattering. She ran from her bedroom and encountered the victim, who was "hunkered down and running, just as fast as he could." The two collided, and Delapp fell down, cutting her forehead, which bled profusely. Delapp then ran to the living room and slammed the front door. As she treated her injury, her daughter appeared. The two women then searched for the victim, who was found lying on the floor of the master bathroom wearing black and red tennis shoes.

Delapp, who in advance of trial had declined to be interviewed by the defense, made a positive identification at trial, emphasizing that she had "eye-to-eye contact" with the Defendant. She explained that the two had "stared at each other for two full seconds." On the day after identifying the Defendant from the photographs displayed by the police, Delapp saw the same picture of the Defendant in the local newspaper with an article stating that he had been arrested and charged with murder. When Delapp later identified the Defendant at trial, she remarked that "his eyes were so intense, I'll never forget him."

Stephanie Delapp testified that several hours prior to the shooting, she learned from the victim's mother, Diva Brown, that Porter had been raped and that the victim might be involved. Stephanie Delapp stated that she drove to Alcoa to meet the victim, who she believed to be involved in illegal drug sales, for the purpose of returning him to their residence. When she arrived, the victim was with Knighton. Neither appeared to have weapons. Upon returning to their residence, Stephanie Delapp and the victim retired to their basement bedroom. When she was awakened by screams at 2:15 a.m., she went upstairs and found her mother in a guest bathroom with blood on her face. When her mother told her about the gunfire, Stephanie Delapp armed herself with a knife from the kitchen and then walked to the master bathroom, where she found the mortally wounded victim.

Maryville Police Sergeant Gary Nitzband, one of the first officers to arrive at the Delapp residence, found the body of the victim in a bathroom. There were three apparent gunshot wounds, one to the groin and two to the upper body. Small amounts of crack cocaine were found in several locations in the victim's basement bedroom. After leaving the Delapp residence, Sergeant Nitzband drove to the Gardenvale Apartments to question a woman named Karla Bragg ("Bragg"), who dated Knighton. Bragg, who appeared "excited" and "scared," provided information that cast suspicion on the Defendant.

At trial, Bragg testified that at approximately 2:30 a.m., some fifteen minutes after the shooting, the Defendant knocked on her door and told her he was looking for Knighton. She stated that he was wearing all black clothing, black gloves, and had his hair sticking up in "plaits" or small braids.

Detective Bill Manuel, who transported Delapp and her daughter to the police station after the shooting, testified that the two women were interviewed separately. At that time, neither could identify the suspect. The officer recalled that Delapp had described the perpetrator as a black male, about five-feet-eleven inches tall, wearing dark clothing, and having little "horns" of twisted hair. Later that day, after the photographic lineup, Detective Manuel informed Delapp that she had identified the person police suspected in the victim's shooting. At trial, the Detective explained that because Knighton was never a suspect in the victim's murder, his photo was not included in the photographic array shown to Delapp. Detective Manuel did not record his interviews, taking brief notes instead.

Maryville Police Detective David Graves and Detective Manuel, who investigated the lighting conditions inside the Delapp residence as they were on the night of the murder, found that there were four, twenty-five-watt lights in the hallway area. Detective Graves testified that although the bulbs were not "real bright," he was able to distinguish the facial features of Detective Manuel, with whom he had worked on an almost daily basis for more than sixteen years.

Dr. David Gilliam, who performed the autopsy, found three gunshot wounds to the front of the body. One bullet entered the collarbone from close-range, a second entered the chest, and a third entered the groin. It was Dr. Gilliam's opinion that the wounds to the collarbone and chest, each of which had passed through the victim's back, would have been fatal. He testified that an...