State v. Mckinney
| Decision Date | 28 March 2001 |
| Docket Number | W1999-00844-CCA-R3-CD |
| Parties | STATE OF TENNESSEE v. TIMOTHY MCKINNEYIN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT JACKSON |
| Court | Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals |
Appeal from the Criminal Court for Shelby County Nos. 98-01434, 98-01435 Joseph B. Dailey, Judge
We affirm the defendant's convictions of first degree murder and attempted second degree murder and the death sentence imposed on the murder charge, despite the defendant's claims that: (1) the trial court erroneously disallowed expert testimony on the reliability of eyewitness identification; (2) the jury's capital sentencing verdict was infirm; (3) the trial court erroneously allowed the impeachment of a defense character witness during the penalty phase of the trial; (4) the trial court erred in allowing victim impact evidence that related to the impact of the victim's death on persons or institutions other than the victim's family; (5) the trial court erroneously limited the defendant's argument to the jury during the penalty phase; (6) cumulative errors require reversal of the death sentence; (7) the Tennessee death penalty statute is, for various reasons, unconstitutional. We find no error and hold that the death penalty in this case was proportionate to the death penalty imposed in similar cases, the sentence was not arbitrarily imposed, and the evidence supports the jury's finding of a statutory aggravating circumstance and its finding that the aggravating circumstance outweighs any mitigating circumstances. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-206(c)(1) (1997).
Tenn. R. App. P. 3; Convictions and Sentence of Death Affirmed.
William Gosnell, Memphis, TN (Trial & Appeal);William D. Massey, Memphis, TN (Appeal), for the Appellant, Timothy McKinney.
Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General; Kathy Morante, Deputy Attorney General; William L. Gibbons, District Attorney General; Phillip Gerald Harris and David Henry, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the Appellee, State of Tennessee.
The defendant, Timothy McKinney, appeals the first degree murder and attempted second degree murder convictions and the death sentence he received in the Shelby County Criminal Court. A jury convicted the defendant of the first degree premeditated murder of Donald Williams, and, after finding the presence of the aggravating circumstance of a prior felony involving violence to a person, it imposed the death penalty. The jury also convicted the defendant of the attempted second degree murder of Frank Lee, and the trial court imposed a consecutive Range I sentence of twelve years. In this appeal, the defendant raises the following issues for our review:
1.Whether the trial court erred by denying the defendant's motion for permission to introduce expert testimony on the reliability of eyewitness identification.
2.Whether the jury's verdict was incomplete and erroneous with respect to the only aggravating circumstance found.
3.Whether the trial court erred by allowing the use of the defendant's juvenile adjudication for aggravated assault to impeach a character witness during the penalty phase of the trial and by failing to instruct the jury on the limited use of that evidence; whether the prosecution engaged in misconduct by arguing that the juvenile adjudication was substantive evidence of a pattern of conduct on the part of the defendant which justified imposition of the death penalty.
4.Whether the trial court committed reversible error by permitting a police officer to offer victim impact testimony regarding the victim's status as a Memphis police officer.
5.Whether the trial court violated the defendant's constitutional rights by prohibiting the defendant from responding to the prosecution's penalty phase closing argument.
6.Whether the cumulative effect of all errors at trial violated the defendant's right to a constitutionally reliable, non-arbitrary sentencing determination and to due process of law.
7.Whether requiring the jury to agree unanimously to a life-sentence verdict violates the defendant's rights.
8.Whether the unlimited discretion vested in the prosecutor as to whether or not to seek the death penalty violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
9.Whether the death penalty was imposed in a discriminatory manner in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
10.Whether the failure to articulate meaningful standards for the proportionality review mandated by Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-206 violates the defendant's right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.
We have heard oral arguments and have reviewed the record, the parties' briefs, and the applicable law. We affirm the convictions and the sentence of death imposed on the first degree murder charge.
FACTS
Trial
On Christmas Night in 1997, off-duty Memphis police officers Frank Lee and Donald Williams were working as security officers at Crumpy's, a Memphis night club. The same evening, the defendant was patronizing the club dressed in a black derby, a colorful sweater, dark pants, gold or yellow shoes with buckles, and a gold vest. When the defendant was "put out" of the club and was unable to locate his car, he became very agitated and threatened to return and "blow up" the club. Lee, Williams, and the defendant looked for the defendant's car, and Williams tried to calm the defendant. At one point, Lee heard the defendant tell Williams, "You didn't have to hit me." Lee and another person separated Williams and the defendant. The defendant then found his car, a Delta 88 Oldsmobile with distinctive taillights and a light top over a dark burgundy or brown body. He got into the car and left.
Stephen Spencer, another club patron and friend of the defendant's, testified that the defendant admitted having had a disagreement with the security guards. The defendant was upset because one of the guards had hit him in the mouth.
Later, the defendant returned to the club, but Lee prevented him from re-entering. The defendant then sat down outside the club beneath a large light, spoke with various individuals leaving the club, and watched Lee and Williams. During this time, Williams called the Memphis Police Department and requested that a patrol car check the area. By the time the requested patrol arrived, the defendant had departed for a second time.
Lee testified that he saw the defendant's car return and park in its original spot. Around this time, on-duty Memphis police officer Ronald Marshall arrived at the club. Marshall testified that Williams pointed out the defendant and related the story of their earlier confrontation. At Williams' request, Marshall briefly detained the defendant. Marshall placed the defendant in his squad car and took the defendant's driver's licence. Williams copied the driver's licence information onto a piece of paper and told Marshall he did not want the defendant arrested. Marshall believed that the defendant had been drinking but released him, and the defendant left for a third time. Although Marshall did not previously know the defendant, he made an in-court identification of the defendant as the individual whom he detained on the morning of December 26, 1997.
A few minutes after the defendant had departed a third time, Lee saw Williams inside the club with the paper and saw him put it in his coat pocket. Between 2:30 and 3:00 a.m. on December 26, the club patrons began to disperse. Lee and Williams went outside where they stood next to each other and watched technicians load some equipment. Lee heard a gunshot. He turned and saw Williams on the ground and the defendant running away. Lee pursued on foot. When the defendant reached his car, he and Lee exchanged gunfire. The defendant got into his car and left. Lee stayed with Williams until the ambulance arrived.
Donald Williams died three days later. The fatal gunshot wound to his neck had damaged the nerves that control breathing. After the shooting, he was temporarily kept alive via artificial respiration, but he succumbed to his injuries after complications set in, including extensive pneumonia.
Lee was able to identify Williams' assailant. He viewed a photographic array shortly after the shooting, and he recognized the defendant from his "lazy" or "droopy" eyes. Lee testified at trial that he recognized the defendant when, after Williams was shot, they looked at each other "eye to eye" from a distance of about five or six feet in a well-lit area. Although the defendant wore a gold-colored bandana over the lower part of his face and no longer wore the hat or the vest, he still wore the yellow shoes, colorful sweater, and dark pants. Lee had no doubt that the defendant was the shooter and was the man he chased from the scene. Lee said he spent a long time with the defendant earlier that night. Moreover, he clearly saw the defendant under the dome light of the car he got into to drive away, and the car was the same Oldsmobile that the defendant had driven earlier in the evening.
Joyce Jeltz, another club patron, testified that when she left the club at about 2:30 a.m. on December 26, 1997, she encountered a man in the alley. He carried a gun at his right side and moved at a "slow" run. The two security guards were nearby talking, and the man with the gun ran up to one of them and shot him once in the back of the head. Jeltz went back into the club and heard other shots fired outside.
Jeltz said that the shooter was dressed in brown pants and an unbuttoned vest. He wore no hat and appeared to have a sweater or shirt pulled up around this face. Jeltz further described the shooter as approximately five feet, ten inches tall and weighing 160 to 180 pounds. He had a long, slim face. She could not identify the defendant from a photographic array because, she said, the photographs did not show the bodies of the persons pictured. She did select two...
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