State v. Davidson, E2013-00394-CCA-R3-DD

Decision Date10 March 2015
Docket NumberNo. E2013-00394-CCA-R3-DD,E2013-00394-CCA-R3-DD
CourtTennessee Court of Criminal Appeals
PartiesSTATE OF TENNESSEE v. LEMARICUS DEVALL DAVIDSON

STATE OF TENNESSEE
v.
LEMARICUS DEVALL DAVIDSON

No. E2013-00394-CCA-R3-DD

COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT KNOXVILLE

October 21, 2014 Session
March 10, 2015


Appeal from the Criminal Court for Knox County
No. 86216B
Walter C. Kurtz, Judge1

The defendant, Lemaricus Devall Davidson, appeals the Knox County Criminal Court jury convictions of two counts of first degree murder, two counts of especially aggravated robbery, two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, three counts of aggravated rape, and one count of facilitation of aggravated rape that he received for his role in the January 2007 deaths of C.N. and C.C.2 The defendant claims that: the trial court erred by refusing to suppress evidence obtained during the searches of his residence, his statements to the police following his arrest, and evidence obtained during searches of his person; the trial court erred by admitting into evidence postmortem photographs of the victims; the trial court should have excluded testimony and evidence regarding fingerprint examination and ballistics testing; the trial court erred by permitting courtroom spectators to wear buttons emblazoned with photographs of the victims during the guilt phase; the State violated his constitutional rights by intercepting and examining privileged communications to and from his attorneys; structural constitutional error occasioned by the out-of-court behavior of the trial judge entitles him to a new trial; the second successor trial judge erred by concluding that he could fulfill the statutory duty of thirteenth-juror review; the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions; errors related to the presentment require dismissal of the charges; the trial court erred by permitting jurors to submit questions for the witnesses; the trial court erred by allowing spectators to remain in the courtroom while jurors reviewed the defendant's videotaped statement as part of their deliberations; the trial court should have dismissed the presentment due to constitutional deficiencies in the jury venire; the trial court erred by refusing to allow him to present evidence of the economic costs associated with the

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implementation of the death penalty; and the trial court erred by excusing those jurors who were not "death qualified." The defendant also raises a number of challenges to the death penalty in general and its application in this case specifically. Because we conclude that no reversible error attends the convictions or sentences in this case and because it is our view, after a mandatory review, that the sentences of death imposed in this case were not disproportionate, we affirm the judgments of the trial court. We detect, however, clerical errors that require that the case be remanded for entry of corrected judgment forms.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3; Judgments of the Criminal Court Affirmed and Remanded

JAMES CURWOOD WITT, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which D. KELLY THOMAS, JR., and ROBERT L. HOLLOWAY, JR., JJ., joined.

David M. Eldridge and Douglas A. Trant, Knoxville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Lemaricus Devall Davidson.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; John H. Bledsoe, Assistant Attorney General; Randall E. Nichols, Assistant District Attorney General; and Leland Price and Takisha Fitzgerald, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

The Knox County Grand Jury charged the defendant, George Thomas, Letalvis Cobbins3, and Vanessa Coleman with eight counts of the first degree felony murder of C.N., eight counts of the first degree felony murder of C.C., one count of the first degree premeditated murder of C.N., one count of the first degree premeditated murder of C.C., one count of the especially aggravated robbery of C.N., one count of the especially aggravated robbery of C.C., two counts of the especially aggravated kidnapping of C.N., two counts of the especially aggravated kidnapping of C.C., five counts of the aggravated rape of C.N., 15 counts of the aggravated rape of C.C., one count of theft of property from C.C. valued at $10,000 or more but less than $60,000, and one count of theft of property from C.N. valued at less than $500.

The defendant's case proceeded to trial in October 2009, and the evidence adduced at that trial established that on December 28, 2006, Stacy Lawson, the girlfriend of Mr. Thomas, drove Mr. Thomas, Mr. Cobbins, and Ms. Coleman from Kentucky to the defendant's residence at 2316 Chipman Street ("Chipman Street residence") in Knoxville. Ms. Lawson returned to Kentucky on January 2, 2007, but the others remained at the

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Chipman Street residence. Daphne Sutton, who was the defendant's girlfriend at the time and who had been living in the Chipman Street residence with the defendant, moved out of the Chipman Street residence on January 5, 2007. Mr. Thomas, Mr. Cobbins, Ms. Coleman, and the defendant remained at the Chipman Street residence.

On Saturday, January 6, 2007, C.N. and C.C. made plans to meet at the Washington Ridge Apartments in Knoxville, go out to dinner, and then join friends at a party. When the couple did not arrive at the party by 10:00 p.m., their friends called and sent messages to the victims' cellular telephones. At approximately 11:00 p.m., two of those friends drove to the Washington Ridge Apartments, where C.C. had last been seen, and discovered C.N.'s truck parked in the parking lot. C.C.'s silver Toyota 4Runner was gone, which struck the friends as odd because the couple typically traveled in C.N.'s truck. Further attempts throughout the night to contact C.N. and C.C. via telephone proved unsuccessful.

At approximately 12:30 a.m. on Sunday, January 7, 2007, C.C. telephoned her parents and told her father that she would be home later after watching a movie. C.C.'s mother stayed up to await her daughter's arrival. When C.C. did not arrive home by 3:30 a.m., C.C.'s mother called C.C.'s cellular telephone but received no answer. C.C.'s mother fell asleep at approximately 6:00 a.m., but when she awoke a few hours later, she resumed calling C.C.'s cellular telephone.

Although they had initially assumed that C.N. had spent the night of January 6, 2007, at a friend's house, C.N.'s parents became concerned for his safety after C.C.'s mother informed them that C.C. had not arrived for work. They checked the local hospitals and stayed by the telephone throughout the day and evening but heard no word of the whereabouts of either victim.

At 12:20 p.m. on Sunday, January 7, a train engineer with Norfolk Southern Corporation discovered the badly burned and partially nude body of a 20- to 25-year-old man near the train tracks at Cherry Street. At approximately 8:30 a.m. on the following morning, the body was identified as C.N.

When C.C. did not arrive for work as scheduled on the afternoon of January 7, 2007, her family began to search for her. Utilizing information from C.C.'s cellular telephone service carrier, they learned that the telephone had last been used at approximately 12:30 a.m. in the Cherry Street area of Knoxville. Family and friends, with the help of a friend who was a former member of law enforcement, organized a grid search of the Cherry Street area. At 1:30 a.m. on Monday, January 8, 2007, members of the search party discovered C.C.'s silver Toyota 4Runner abandoned at the corner of Chipman and Glider Streets. Knoxville Police Department ("KPD") Senior Evidence Technician Daniel

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Crenshaw arrived approximately one-half hour later and performed the preliminary processing of C.C.'s vehicle at the scene. He photographed the vehicle and dusted the exterior for fingerprints before having the car towed to the police impound lot. No further processing was conducted on the vehicle until later that evening.

Witnesses who worked or lived near the Chipman Street residence testified that a lot of activity occurred near the residence shortly after midnight on Sunday, January 7, 2007. One witness recalled having seen four black individuals in a Toyota 4Runner at approximately 12:30 a.m., which vehicle the witness saw parked near the railroad tracks later that morning. Another witness heard "three loud pops" at approximately 1:45 a.m. on Sunday morning. A third witness saw smoke rising from the area of the railroad tracks at 7:45 a.m. on January 7, 2007.

When Mr. Crenshaw returned to work at 11:00 p.m. on Monday, January 8, he collected a bank envelope from the back seat of C.C.'s 4Runner and processed it for fingerprints. At 2:45 a.m. on Tuesday, January 9, Mr. Crenshaw identified the fingerprint he discovered on the envelope as belonging to the defendant. He then determined the defendant's address to be 2316 Chipman Street. Mr. Crenshaw notified Investigator Todd Childress of the preliminary fingerprint identification. Tim Schade, another KPD evidence technician, verified the fingerprint identification at approximately 8:00 a.m. on January 9.

At 12:53 p.m. on Tuesday, January 9, 2007, Investigator Childress obtained a warrant to search the Chipman Street residence. Officers entered the residence at 1:39 p.m. and three minutes later, while securing the scene, discovered C.C.'s body in a large trash can in the kitchen. Doctor Darinka Mileusnic-Polchan, Knox County Medical Examiner, arrived at the residence at 2:04 p.m. and directed that the trash can with C.C.'s body inside it be transported to the medical examiner's office.

On Thursday, January 11, 2007, officers arrested the defendant at an abandoned house in the Western Heights area of Knoxville. Following an admonition and waiver of rights, the defendant gave a two-and-one-half-hour statement concerning the robbery, kidnapping, rape, and murder of the victims. Although the defendant initially denied being present at the Chipman Street residence during the preceding weekend, he ultimately admitted that he had some interaction with C.C. but denied having had sex with her. He specifically denied...

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