State v. Lowe

• Citation: 552 S.W.3d 842
• Decision Date: 20 July 2018
• Docket Number: No. M2014-00472-SC-R11-CD,M2014-00472-SC-R11-CD
• Parties: STATE of Tennessee v. Lindsey Brooke LOWE
• Court: Supreme Court of Tennessee

552 S.W.3d 842

STATE of Tennessee
v.
Lindsey Brooke LOWE

No. M2014-00472-SC-R11-CD

Supreme Court of Tennessee, AT NASHVILLE.

September 6, 2017 Session Heard at Knoxville¹
FILED July 20, 2018

David L. Raybin (on appeal), Nashville, Tennessee; John Pellegrin (at trial and on appeal) and James Ramsey (at trial), Gallatin, Tennessee, for the appellant, Lindsey Brooke Lowe.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Andrée S. Blumstein, Solicitor General; Leslie E. Price, Senior Counsel; Lawrence Ray Whitley, District Attorney General; and C. Ronald Blanton, Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, the State of Tennessee.

Jonathan Harwell, Knoxville, Tennessee, and Richard L. Tennent, Nashville, Tennessee, for amicus curiae, Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Jeffrey S. Bivins, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Cornelia A. Clark, Sharon G. Lee, Holly Kirby, and Roger A. Page, JJ., joined.

Jeffrey S. Bivins, C.J.

A jury convicted the Defendant, Lindsey Brooke Lowe, of two counts of first degree premeditated murder, two counts of first degree felony murder, and two counts of aggravated child abuse, all arising from the Defendant’s smothering to death her newborn infant twins. The trial court merged the alternative counts of first degree murder as to each victim and sentenced the Defendant to two terms of

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life imprisonment for the murders and two terms of twenty-five years for the aggravated child abuse convictions, all to be served concurrently. On direct appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the Defendant’s convictions and sentences. We granted the Defendant’s application for permission to appeal in order to address the following issues raised by the Defendant: (1) whether the Exclusionary Rule Reform Act, codified at Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-6-108 ("the ERRA"), violates the Tennessee Constitution’s Separation of Powers Clause; (2) whether the trial court erred by relying on the ERRA to deny the Defendant’s motion to suppress the evidence gathered at her house pursuant to a search warrant that did not conform with the technical requirements of Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 41 ; (3) whether the trial court erred by ruling inadmissible certain expert testimony proffered by the defense during the hearing on the Defendant’s motion to suppress her statement to Detective Malach; (4) whether the trial court erred by denying the Defendant’s motion to suppress her statement; and (5) whether the trial court erred by prohibiting the Defendant’s expert witness from testifying at trial about the reliability of her responses to Detective Malach’s questions. We also directed the parties to address the additional issue of whether the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule adopted by this Court in State v. Davidson, 509 S.W.3d 156, 185-86 (Tenn. 2016), should be expanded to include clerical errors made by the issuing magistrate when the search in question is otherwise constitutional. We hold that the ERRA represents an impermissible encroachment by the legislature upon this Court’s authority and responsibility to adopt exceptions to the exclusionary rule and, therefore, violates the Tennessee Constitution’s Separation of Powers Clause; that the exclusionary rule should not be applied to suppress evidence gathered pursuant to a search warrant that is technically defective under Rule 41 due to the magistrate’s simple and good-faith clerical error of incorrectly indicating on one of three copies of the warrant that it was issued at 11:35 "PM" while correctly indicating on the other two copies that it was issued at 11:35 "AM"; that the trial court did not err in ruling inadmissible the defense expert’s testimony at the hearing on the Defendant’s motion to suppress her statement, although the trial court should have allowed defense counsel to proffer the testimony in a question and answer format; that the trial court did not err in ruling that the Defendant was not in custody at the time she made her statement to Detective Malach, rendering moot any claimed defects in the administration of Miranda warnings prior to her statement being made; and that the trial court did not commit reversible error in ruling inadmissible at trial certain proffered expert testimony by a defense witness. In sum, we affirm the Defendant’s convictions and sentences.

Factual and Procedural Background

In September 2011, the Defendant was twenty-five years old, had graduated from college, and was engaged to be married. She was employed in the office of a dental practice and was living with her parents, Mark and Paula Lowe, and her younger sister, Lacey, in the Lowes' home. The Defendant’s bedroom was upstairs, as was Lacey’s, and the two sisters shared a bathroom.

In late December 2010 or early January 2011, the Defendant became pregnant with twins by a man not her fiancé. The Defendant concealed her pregnancy. During the night of Monday, September 12, 2011, the Defendant gave birth to twin boys, unassisted, in the bathroom she shared with her sister. The Defendant concealed the

552 S.W.3d 848

births from her family members and cleaned up the bathroom before her sister used it on the morning of the 13th. The Defendant texted her supervisor on the morning of the 13th and stated that she would not be into the office that day due to illness. One day later, on Wednesday, September 14, 2011, the Defendant reported to work as usual.

That same morning, after the Defendant left for work, the Defendant’s mother discovered one of the infant boys in a laundry basket in the Defendant’s bedroom. Mr. Lowe contacted the police. Several police officers and emergency medical personnel arrived and determined that the boy was dead.

A "death investigation" ensued. Detective Steve Malach, after briefly viewing the boy’s body, departed the Lowes' house to go to the Defendant’s workplace. Although Mr. Lowe reportedly consented to the police officers' searching his house, the police began the process of obtaining a search warrant for the Lowe residence. After obtaining the warrant late in the morning on the 14th, the police obtained numerous items from the Lowe residence.

In the meantime, Detective Malach drove to the dental practice where the Defendant was employed and, after introducing himself, was taken to meet the Defendant. Detective Malach spoke briefly to the Defendant at her workplace and then requested that she come to the police department to be interviewed. The Defendant agreed, and she accompanied Detective Malach in Detective Malach’s car to police headquarters. During the ensuing interview, the Defendant explained that she had given birth to not just one, but actually two infants. Upon learning this information, Detective Malach immediately paused the interview so that he could alert the officers still at the Lowe residence about the existence of another infant. Subsequently, officers found a second deceased boy at the bottom of the same laundry basket.

In response to Detective Malach’s questions about how the boys died, the Defendant explained that she had placed her hand over each one’s mouth in order to stifle his cries. She acknowledged that, by doing so, she smothered each boy to death. She later placed their bodies, as well as the single placenta, in her laundry basket. She then proceeded to clean up the bathroom. She stayed home on Tuesday, September 13, 2011, in order to recover from the deliveries. At no time during these events did the Defendant inform any family member as to what had happened nor did she call for medical assistance.

After Detective Malach completed interviewing the Defendant, he arranged for the Defendant to be taken to the hospital to be checked for complications following her deliveries. The Defendant later was arrested at the hospital and subsequently indicted for two counts of first degree premeditated murder, two counts of first degree felony murder in the perpetration of aggravated child abuse, and two counts of aggravated child abuse.²

Prior to trial, the Defendant moved to suppress (1) her statement to Detective Malach and (2) the evidence obtained pursuant to the search warrant. After evidentiary hearings, the trial court denied both motions, and the matter proceeded to a jury trial. The jury convicted the Defendant as charged. The trial court merged

552 S.W.3d 849

the two first degree murder convictions as to each child and sentenced the Defendant to life imprisonment for each murder conviction. The trial court subsequently sentenced the Defendant to twenty-five years' imprisonment for each of the aggravated child abuse convictions, and ordered all of the sentences to be served concurrently. On direct appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the trial court’s judgments. State v. Lowe, No. M2014-00472-CCA-R3-CD, 2016 WL 4909455, at *48 (Tenn. Crim. App. July 12, 2016), perm. appeal granted (Tenn. Jan. 18, 2017).

We granted the Defendant’s application for permission to appeal in order to address the following issues: (1) whether the Exclusionary Rule Reform Act, codified at Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-6-108 ("the ERRA"), violates the Tennessee Constitution’s Separation of Powers Clause; (2) whether the...