State v. Feaster
| Decision Date | 25 June 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. E2012-02636-SC-R11-CD,E2012-02636-SC-R11-CD |
| Citation | 466 S.W.3d 80 |
| Parties | State of Tennessee v. Terrence Justin Feaster |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Stephen Ross Johnson, Knoxville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Terrence Justin Feaster.
Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Andrée S. Blumstein, Solicitor General; John H. Bledsoe, Senior Counsel; Randall E. Nichols, District Attorney General; and Leslie Nassios and Federico Flores, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.
OPINION
The defendant was convicted of attempted voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, and false imprisonment. After determining that the separate convictions for attempted voluntary manslaughter and aggravated assault did not violate double jeopardy, the trial court imposed consecutive sentences totaling twenty-six years, eleven months, and twenty-nine days. A divided panel of the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, finding no double jeopardy violation. This Court granted the defendant's application for permission to appeal to determine whether due process safeguards prohibit the retroactive application of the double jeopardy standard adopted in State v. Watkins, 362 S.W.3d 530 (Tenn.2012), which was decided after the date of his offenses. The defendant argues that the former double jeopardy standard set out in State v. Denton, 938 S.W.2d 373 (Tenn.1996), should apply. Because our ruling in Watkins cannot be classified as “unexpected” or “indefensible” by reference to prior law, due process does not preclude its retroactive application. The judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals is affirmed.
In the early morning hours of May 27, 2010, Molly Kate McWhirter (the “victim”) was seriously injured during an altercation with Terrence Justin Feaster (the “Defendant”) at her Knoxville residence. Several weeks later, the Defendant was apprehended in South Carolina. Thereafter, he was extradited to Tennessee and indicted on one count of attempted first degree murder, one count of aggravated assault, two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, and one count of aggravated robbery.
At trial, the State's proof established that the Defendant had been living at the victim's residence for approximately two weeks before she drove him to a sports bar on the night of May 26, 2010. After an hour or so, the Defendant became “really drunk,” and so the victim drove him back to her residence. According to the victim, when she went to her bathroom, the Defendant broke through the door and “just started beating [her].” She testified that he then dragged her into the bedroom, where he tied her feet to an entertainment center and threatened to kill her if she moved. The victim recalled that she momentarily lost consciousness, and when she awoke, she was able to free herself and run to the residence of a neighbor, who called 911. The police officers who responded to the scene found significant amounts of blood in the bathroom, bedroom, dining room, and living room.
After being transported by ambulance to a hospital, the victim remained unconscious for the next three days. Dr. William Snyder Jr., the victim's treating neurosurgeon, diagnosed a temporal skull fracture, a dislocation of the jaw, several lacerations on the forehead and scalp, nasal fractures, bilateral pulmonary contusions, and soft-tissue injuries to the arms. When the victim returned home, she found that several of her possessions were missing—jewelry, cash, clothing, a computer, and her purse and its contents. The victim denied that she and the Defendant had argued prior to the assault or that she had threatened him with a gun.
The Defendant testified that he and the victim met a man called “D” at the bar. When the victim left the bar with “D,” the Defendant followed her outside and found her “kissing on” him. The Defendant claimed that he became so angry and embarrassed that he began walking home. He contended that the victim followed, driving his vehicle, and persuaded him to get inside. He recalled that they began to argue and, after they arrived at the victim's residence, she initiated the altercation with two or three punches to his face. According to the Defendant, when he retaliated by hitting her in the nose, the victim pointed a pistol in his direction. He asserted that he “grabbed the pistol from her,” and when she continued to attack him, he used it to strike her in the head, eventually knocking her to the bathroom floor.
The Defendant claimed that the victim then asked him to remove all the drugs and guns from the property and to call 911. The Defendant maintained that he drove to the residence of a friend, who agreed to call 911 but refused to accept the drugs and two guns that he had brought with him. The Defendant contended that he had initially intended to visit the victim at the hospital, but decided instead to drive to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where he was scheduled to perform at a concert. The Defendant denied taking any property from the victim other than the drugs and guns.
The jury convicted the Defendant of attempted voluntary manslaughter, as a lesser included offense of attempted first degree murder; aggravated assault; and one count of false imprisonment, as a lesser included offense of especially aggravated kidnapping. He was acquitted of the aggravated robbery charge and one of the two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping. The trial court declined to merge any of the convictions and imposed consecutive sentences of twelve years for the attempted voluntary manslaughter, fourteen years for the aggravated assault, and eleven months and twenty-nine days for the false imprisonment.
A divided panel of the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the convictions and sentences. State v. Feaster, No. E2012–02636–CCA–R3–CD, 2014 WL 2170096, at *14 . Dissenting in part, Judge Joseph M. Tipton concluded that the trial court should have merged the convictions for attempted voluntary manslaughter and aggravated assault pursuant to the double jeopardy principles set forth in State v. Denton, 938 S.W.2d 373, 378–81 (Tenn.1996), which was in effect at the time of the offenses but was later overruled by this Court in State v. Watkins, 362 S.W.3d 530, 556 (Tenn.2012). Feaster, 2014 WL 2170096, at *14 (Tipton, P.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). We granted review to determine whether Watkins may be applied retroactively.
This appeal involves a question of constitutional interpretation, which we review de novo, affording no presumption of correctness to the conclusions of the trial court. State v. Crank, No. E2012–01189–SC–R11–CD, 468 S.W.3d 15, 20–21, 2015 WL 603158, at *4 (Tenn. Feb. 13, 2015).
The sole issue is whether the Defendant's convictions for attempted voluntary manslaughter and aggravated assault should be merged based upon the double jeopardy principles set out in Denton.1
The Federal Double Jeopardy Clause provides that “[n]o person shall ... be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.”U.S. Const. amend. V. Tennessee's Double Jeopardy Clause provides “[t]hat no person shall, for the same offence, be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” Tenn. Const. art I, § 10. These provisions “protect[ ] against successive prosecutions for the same offense after acquittal or conviction and against multiple criminal punishments for the same offense.” Monge v. California, 524 U.S. 721, 727–28, 118 S.Ct. 2246, 141 L.Ed.2d 615 (1998) ; State v. Smith, 436 S.W.3d 751, 766 (Tenn.2014).
In Denton, this Court adopted a four-factor test for determining whether multiple convictions were for “the same offense” such that they had to be merged pursuant to the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Tennessee Constitution: (1) whether, viewing the statutory elements “in the abstract” in accordance with Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932), each offense includes an element which the other does not; (2) whether the same evidence was used to establish the offenses; (3) whether the offenses involved multiple victims or discrete acts; and (4) whether the statutes serve the same purpose. Denton, 938 S.W.2d at 381. No single factor of the Denton test was determinative; rather, the factors were to “be weighed and considered in relation to each other.” Id.
More recently, in Watkins, this Court abandoned the four-part test from Denton, holding that a double jeopardy claim by a defendant who has been convicted of multiple crimes under different statutes must be evaluated pursuant to the same-elements test established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Blockburger . Watkins, 362 S.W.3d at 556.2 Consistent with Blockburger, Watkins first and foremost requires a determination of legislative intent: if the General Assembly has clearly indicated that multiple punishments should or should not be permitted, the inquiry ends there. Id. at 556. When there is no clear indication of legislative intent, the next consideration is whether the convictions arise from the same act or transaction; if they arise from different transactions, then no double jeopardy violation has occurred. Id. If the convictions do arise from the same transaction, the question becomes whether each offense includes an element that the other does not—if so, there is a presumption that the General Assembly intended to permit multiple punishments; if not, the presumption is that multiple punishments are not permitted. Id. at 557. While these steps are typically determinative, Watkins also allows for consideration of whether the presumption for or against multiple punishments is contradicted by “other evidence of legislative intent, including the...
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