State v. Hutchison, E2012-02671-SC-R11-CD.
| Decision Date | 05 February 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. E2012-02671-SC-R11-CD.,E2012-02671-SC-R11-CD. |
| Citation | 482 S.W.3d 893 |
| Parties | State of Tennessee v. Thomas Lee Hutchison |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Robert L. Jolley, Jr., and Megan A. Swain, Knoxville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Thomas Lee Hutchison.
Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Andrée S. Blumstein, Solicitor General, John H. Bledsoe, Senior Counsel of Criminal Justice Division, Randall Eugene Nichols, District Attorney General; and TaKisha Fitzgerald, Assistant District Attorney General, for appellee, the State of Tennessee.
OPINION
A jury convicted the defendant of three counts of facilitation of first degree murder and one count of facilitation of aggravated robbery. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and the sentence. On appeal to this Court, the defendant contends, inter alia, that the admission into evidence of an autopsy report through the testimony of a medical examiner who did not perform the autopsy violated his right to confront the witnesses against him under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 9 of the Tennessee Constitution. The defendant also argues that the warrantless search of his home by officers who entered the home after the first responding officer constituted an unreasonable search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 7 of the Tennessee Constitution, so the trial court should have suppressed the evidence seized in that search. We hold that, under the circumstances of this case, the autopsy report is not testimonial under Williams v. Illinois, ––– U.S. ––––, 132 S.Ct. 2221, 183 L.Ed.2d 89 (2012), so its admission into evidence did not violate the Defendant's rights under the Confrontation Clause. We further hold that, where the responding officer's initial entry into the home was justified by exigent circumstances, the subsequent entry into the home by other officers constituted a mere continuation of the initial officer's lawful entry into the home. Consequently, the trial court did not err by denying the Defendant's motion to suppress the evidence that was in plain view and within the scope of the exigent circumstances search. Finally, we hold that the admission into evidence of items that were not in plain view, even if erroneous, constituted harmless error. Accordingly, we affirm.
This case involves the February 20, 2002 robbery and murder of Gary Lindsay ("victim") in the home of the defendant in this case, Thomas Lee Hutchison ("Defendant"). The Defendant was indicted for premeditated first degree murder, felony murder, and especially aggravated robbery of the victim. A Knox County jury found the Defendant guilty of three counts of the lesser included offense of facilitation of first degree murder and one count of the lesser included offense of facilitation of especially aggravated robbery. The trial judge merged the facilitation of first degree murder convictions and sentenced the Defendant to seventeen years, and it also sentenced Defendant to a concurrent sentence of eight years on the conviction for facilitation of especially aggravated robbery.
The following evidence was presented to the jury at trial. On February 20, 2002, at approximately 1:19 a.m., an operator with the Knox County Emergency Communications District received a call from Mr. Gene Mitchell regarding an incident at the Defendant's home. Knoxville Police Department (KPD) Officer Josh Shaffer was nearby and responded to the call at approximately 1:23 a.m. When he arrived at the home, Officer Shaffer saw a car that appeared to be exiting the driveway at a high rate of speed. Officer Shaffer pulled into the driveway and blocked the car so that it could not leave. The driver of the car stopped, got out, and yelled to Officer Shaffer, At the same time, two more men ran out of the house yelling, Officer Shaffer detained all three men in the carport of the home until a backup officer arrived. Officer Shaffer did not notice whether there was blood on the hands or clothing of the three men detained in the carport.
When other KPD officers and investigators arrived on the scene at approximately 1:28 a.m., Officer Shaffer entered the home. Upon entering, Officer Shaffer encountered the Defendant sitting on the floor of the living room, obviously injured. Officer Shaffer described the Defendant as "disoriented to an extent" and commented that the Defendant's demeanor was consistent with that of someone who had smoked crack cocaine and was coming down off a high. The three men who had been detained in the carport burst into the home behind Officer Shaffer and began yelling at the Defendant. As Officer Shaffer and the other officers pushed the men back outside, the men pointed to an upstairs room and said, "He's in there, he's in there."
After the detained men were ushered back outside, Officer Shaffer went to the indicated upstairs room. There, Officer Shaffer found the victim lying face down in the corner. The victim's head had sustained extensive trauma and his pants were pulled down to his knees. A crowbar with blood and tissue on it, partially wrapped in a comforter, lay next to the body. The walls, ceiling and items in the room had a substantial amount of blood spatter on them. Several items in the room were visibly out of place as if they had been knocked over. Based on the extent of the injuries, it was immediately clear to Officer Shaffer that the victim was deceased.
Because the Defendant was injured, the KPD called an ambulance to take him to the hospital. As other officers and technicians arrived to inspect and process the crime scene, Officer Shaffer accompanied the Defendant to the hospital to ensure the preservation of all evidence associated with the Defendant's person, including his belongings and his clothing.
Meanwhile, at approximately 1:40 a.m., KPD crime scene technician Janice Gangwer arrived on the scene and met with the officers that were already there. She entered the home without a warrant and without the consent of the Defendant. Gangwer began processing the crime scene by making videos, taking photographs, and marking evidence. She photographed certain items, including the bloody crowbar, 0.27 grams of crack cocaine, a crack pipe, and a navy blue sweatshirt. In her testimony, Gangwer observed that the victim's head had been crushed. She described the bedroom as the "scene of a violent attack."
Witness Jim Murray testified that, in 2002, he was an investigator with the KPD Major Crimes Division. On February 20, 2002, investigator Murray arrived at the crime scene around the same time as technician Gangwer, at approximately 1:40 a.m. Officers who were already there briefed Murray when he arrived. After Gangwer took video and photographs, Murray assisted in further processing the crime scene. Murray stated that, during the processing, the officers discovered a wooden knife handle lying on the floor in the room in which the victim was found. The wooden knife handle had the blade broken off and had significant blood on it. Investigator Murray noticed similar knives in the kitchen in the home. Investigator Murray saw that the victim was wearing a gold ring on one hand. The victim's other hand was covered in blood; the ring area on one finger on that hand had no ring on it but was nevertheless void of blood. This led investigator Murray to suspect that the victim had been wearing a ring on that finger during the fatal assault that was removed after the assault. Investigator Murray later found a gold nugget ring on the vanity in the upstairs bathroom.
After technician Gangwer and investigator Murray finished processing evidence at the Defendant's home, they joined Officer Shaffer at the hospital where the Defendant was being treated to process the evidence there. Gangwer photographed the Defendant's hands and face, with particular attention to blood stains on them. Investigator Murray obtained a search warrant to get samples from the Defendant's hands. After he obtained the search warrant, Murray took swab samples from the Defendant's hands and clippings from his fingernails. They took the clothing that had been removed from the Defendant at the hospital.
Witness Gerald Smith testified that, in 2002, he was a senior evidence technician with the KPD. On February 20, 2002, technician Smith arrived at the crime scene shortly after 2:00 a.m. He testified about his extensive education in bloodstain pattern analysis. Based on his observation of the crime scene and the blood-spatter pattern on the walls, ceiling, and items in the room where the victim was found, Smith concluded that most of the blows to the victim's head had occurred while the victim was prone, lying face down on the carpet.
The jury heard testimony from witness Penny Cox, who was present in the Defendant's home when the murder occurred. Two days before the murder, Ms. Cox said, she was in the Defendant's home with the victim and her friend John Mitchell; she had hoped to rent a downstairs bedroom from the Defendant and she spent that day cleaning the bedroom she planned to rent. The next day, she said, the Defendant, the victim, and John Mitchell were all in the Defendant's home and played cards. While they were playing, the Defendant asked the victim for some crack cocaine; the victim responded by calling the Defendant a "dumb ass." The next day, Ms. Cox said, the Defendant told her that he did not like the victim because he was a "dumb ass," and he had a plan to rob the victim. However, the Defendant did not tell Ms. Cox any details about the alleged robbery plan.
The day of the murder, Ms. Cox testified, she overheard the Defendant on...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Leidig v. State
...test. See Young , 63 A.3d at 1043-44 ; People v. Barba , 215 Cal.App.4th 712, 155 Cal. Rptr. 3d 707, 724 (2013) ; State v. Hutchison , 482 S.W.3d 893, 910-11 (Tenn. 2016).The problem with trying to identify a broad rule of decision from Melendez-Diaz and Bullcoming is that there never have ......
-
State v. Rimmer
...We have held repeatedly that defendants, even in capital cases, are not entitled to a perfect trial. See, e.g. , State v. Hutchison , 482 S.W.3d 893, 921 (Tenn. 2016) ("[T]he Constitution entitles a criminal defendant to a fair trial, not a perfect one." (alteration in original) (quoting De......
-
State v. Walker
...consistently held that experts may rely on other experts' findings in reaching their own independent conclusions. See State v. Hutchison , 482 S.W.3d 893, 914 (Tenn. 2016) (applying Williams to admission of autopsy report prepared by nontestifying medical examiner); see also Washington v. G......
-
State v. Hawkins
...Amendment and article I, section 7 is a non-structural constitutional error, subject to harmless error analysis. State v. Hutchison , 482 S.W.3d 893, 921 (Tenn. 2016). Reversal may be avoided if the State demonstrates "beyond a reasonable doubt that the [non-structural constitutional] error......
-
Chapter 5 - §3. Right of confrontation & out-of-court statements
...Mattox (Wis.2017) 373 Wis.2d 122, 141 (same), and State v. Michaels (N.J.2014) 219 N.J. 1, 32 (same), with State v. Hutchison (Tenn.2016) 482 S.W.3d 893, 914 (applying Williams by considering outcome under each analysis; evidence was not testimonial because it did not meet Alito's primary-p......
-
Table of Cases null
...293 (1994)—Ch. 5-C, §2.1 Stanton v. Sims, 571 U.S. 3, 134 S. Ct. 3, 187 L. Ed. 2d 341 (2013)—Ch. 5-A, §3.1.2(1)(a)[1] State v. Hutchison, 482 S.W.3d 893 (Tenn. 2016)—Ch. 5-E, §3.2.1(2)(b) State v. Mattox, 2017 WI 9, 373 Wis. 2d 122, 890 N.W.2d 256 (2017)—Ch. 5-E, §3.2.1(2)(b) State v. Micha......