State v. Crawford
| Decision Date | 31 August 2017 |
| Docket Number | No. M2015-02426-CCA-R3-CD,M2015-02426-CCA-R3-CD |
| Parties | STATE OF TENNESSEE v. ANTHONY M. CRAWFORD |
| Court | Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals |
Appeal from the Criminal Court for Wilson County
A Wilson County jury convicted the Defendant, Anthony M. Crawford, of aggravated assault and child abuse. The trial court sentenced the Defendant to consecutive prison terms of six and four years, for a total effective sentence of ten years. On appeal, the Defendant asserts that: (1) the trial court erred when it denied his motion to dismiss the indictment on double jeopardy grounds; (2) the trial court improperly commented on the evidence; (3) the trial court erred when it precluded the Defendant's expert witness from testifying at the suppression hearing; (4) the trial court erred when it denied the Defendant's motion to suppress his October 19, 2012 statement; (5) the evidence is insufficient to support the convictions; (6) the trial court erred when it allowed the State to cross-examine witnesses about "highly prejudicial statements" the Defendant made about the victim; (7) the State did not properly make an election of offenses, thus depriving the Defendant of a unanimous verdict; (8) the cumulative effect of the errors deprived the Defendant of a fair trial; and (9) the trial court improperly ordered consecutive sentencing. After a thorough review of the record and applicable law, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.
Andrew Love and Barry Gearon, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Anthony M. Crawford.
Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Brent C. Cherry, Senior Counsel; Tom P. Thomson, Jr., District Attorney General; and Thomas H. Swink, Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.
OPINIONA Wilson County grand jury indicted the Defendant for two counts of aggravated child abuse. The victim was his girlfriend's two-month old baby. The Defendant filed a motion to suppress his statement made to police on October 4, 2012, at Vanderbilt Hospital, and a separate motion to suppress his statement made to police on October 19, 2012, after undergoing a polygraph test at the police station. After a hearing, the trial court determined that both statements were voluntarily made and denied the motions to suppress the statements.
The Defendant also filed a motion in limine requesting that the State not be allowed to mention the polygraph test at trial. The trial court granted the motion. On October 21, 2014, the first trial in this case began. After the State had presented proof, the Defendant presented an expert witness who mentioned that, in the course of the investigation, the Defendant had taken a polygraph test. Upon mention of the polygraph test, the trial court excused the jury and talked with both attorneys. The trial court asked the attorneys for suggestions on ways to address the issue of the jury's hearing about the polygraph test. Neither attorney offered any constructive suggestions. The trial court declared a mistrial on October 22, 2014.
On January 28, 2015, the Defendant filed a motion to dismiss the indictment on double jeopardy grounds based upon the October 22, 2014 mistrial. After a hearing, the trial court denied the motion and denied the Defendant's request for an interlocutory appeal. At the second trial, the jury found the Defendant guilty of the lesser-included offenses of aggravated assault and child abuse. The trial court sentenced the Defendant to consecutive prison terms of six years and four years, for an effective sentence of ten years.
The Defendant contended in his suppression motions that both the October 4 statement and the October 19 statement were obtained through police coercion. On appeal, the Defendant challenges only the voluntariness of the October 19 statement. We will summarize all the testimony from the suppression hearing as the entire progression of the investigation is relevant to this issue.
Scott Massey, a Lebanon Police Department detective, testified that he received a phone call on October 4, 2012, from a Department of Children's Services ("DCS") case worker. The case worker advised that Vanderbilt Children's Hospital had notified DCS about a possible two-month-old child abuse victim, who had several fractures.
At Vanderbilt Hospital, Detective Massey and Detective Donnie Self met in the emergency room with Dr. Meredith, the attending physician. Dr. Meredith described the multiple fractures throughout the victim's body that were in various stages of healing. Based upon the initial assessment, the victim's case had been transferred to Dr. Deborah Lowen, the head of the child abuse team at Vanderbilt Hospital.
Detective Massey testified that he next spoke with the victim's mother, N.S., who relayed the victim's history to Detective Massey. N.S. told the detective that she was thirty-two weeks into her pregnancy when the victim was born on July 31, 2012. Due to his premature birth, the victim remained in the hospital until August 31, 2012. After release from the hospital, the victim had weekly medical appointments with the pediatrician. N.S. told Detective Massey that, two days before his hospitalization, the victim had been "vomiting." N.S. took the victim to his pediatrician, and the pediatrician instructed her to take the victim to "Vanderbilt." At the hospital, the victim was diagnosed with "acid reflux," given a prescription, and sent home. Two days later, October 4, 2012, the vomiting persisted. N.S. said that she called the pediatrician, and the pediatrician again advised N.S. to take the victim to "Vanderbilt" for assessment.
Detective Massey testified that N.S. told him that she lived at Value Place, an extended stay hotel on Highway 109, and worked full-time in housekeeping at the hotel. The Defendant lived with her and the victim, and the Defendant had been "babysitting" on October 4 while N.S. worked. When the pediatrician advised her to take the victim to Vanderbilt Hospital on October 4, she and the Defendant took him. N.S. said that she requested x-rays of the victim in an attempt to learn what was wrong with the victim. It was following these x-rays that N.S. learned of "all of the broken bones." Detective Massey described N.S. as "visibly upset." She told Detective Massey that she was mad at being accused by Vanderbilt Hospital personnel of harming her child when she had "not done anything to hurt [the victim]."
Detective Massey testified that he told N.S. that he was "trying to figure out exactly what happened" to the victim, a two-month old that had "many broken bones" with no explanation. He asked her to explain her "home life." N.S. said that the Defendant was her boyfriend and "stay-at-home babysitter." She explained that she worked six days a week, eight hours a day. She tried to work ten and twelve-hour days for the overtime money, so having the Defendant watch the victim was helpful to her. She said that the Defendant was not the victim's biological father but that she and theDefendant "had been together since she was pregnant." N.S. confirmed that she and the Defendant were the only people who took care of the victim. She explained that they would go to the Defendant's mother's house on Saturday nights for "family night" where the whole family would be together but that the victim was with N.S. and the Defendant the entire time.
N.S. told Detective Massey that the victim slept, swaddled, in his "swing." She had found that he slept better in his swing than his crib. She described the victim as having been "really fussy lately." Consequently, she and the Defendant had not been able to sleep much. N.S. adamantly denied doing anything to harm the victim. N.S. also denied that the Defendant had done anything to harm the victim. She said the Defendant treated the victim as "his own son."
Detective Massey testified that, on the night of October 4, 2012, Vanderbilt Hospital was "extremely busy" and there were no rooms available for him to speak privately with N.S. Their conversation took place on the benches outside the hospital, in front of the emergency department entrance. Detective Self was eight to ten feet away from Detective Massey and N.S. while the two spoke. Detective Massey estimated that the interview lasted for an hour, beginning at 9:20 p.m. Detective Massey then asked if he could speak with the Defendant since he was the primary caregiver. N.S. said that the Defendant and his mother were outside smoking, and then she called the Defendant's mother's cell phone. Once N.S. made contact with the Defendant, Detective Massey asked if he could speak to the Defendant on the phone. He identified himself to the Defendant and asked if the Defendant would meet with him to speak about the victim's injuries. The Defendant agreed and approximately a minute later the Defendant approached Detective Massey from the parking garage.
Detective Massey testified that he invited the Defendant to sit on the bench with him while they spoke. He said that it seemed "kind of informal" to him at that point and that the Defendant did not appear "to have a problem with coming over and talking" with the detective. Initially, Detective Massey gathered background information to see if the Defendant's information was consistent with the information N.S. had provided. The Defendant described his living arrangement with N.S. and his daily routine with the victim. He agreed that he had not been sleeping well lately due to the victim's fussiness. The Defendant told Detective Massey that he had been unaware that the victim had...
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