State v. Minor

Decision Date11 April 2018
Docket NumberNo. W2016-00348-SC-R11-CD,W2016-00348-SC-R11-CD
Citation546 S.W.3d 59
Parties STATE of Tennessee v. Christopher MINOR
CourtTennessee Supreme Court

Lee R. Sparks and Joshua B. Dougan, Jackson, Tennessee, for the appellant, Christopher Minor.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Andrée S. Blumstein, Solicitor General; Jeffrey D. Zentner, Assistant Attorney General; James G. Woodall, District Attorney General; and Aaron J. Chaplin, Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

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

OPINION

CORNELIA A. CLARK, JUSTICE

We granted this appeal to clarify the interplay among appellate review preservation requirements, the plain error doctrine, and the retroactive application of new rules. We conclude that a new rule applies retroactively to cases pending on direct review when the new rule is announced but does so subject to other jurisprudential concepts, such as appellate review preservation requirements and the plain error doctrine. Accordingly, the Court of Criminal Appeals' decision in State v. Bonds, 502 S.W.3d 118 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2016), perm. app. denied (Tenn. Aug. 18, 2016), declaring the criminal gang offense statute, see Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-121(b) (2014), unconstitutional applies to the defendant’s appeal because it was pending on direct review when Bonds was decided. Nevertheless, we evaluate the defendant’s entitlement to relief by applying the plain error doctrine because the defendant failed to challenge the constitutionality of the statute in the trial court. We conclude that the defendant has established the criteria necessary to obtain relief pursuant to the plain error doctrine. Therefore, we reverse that portion of the Court of Criminal Appeals' decision denying the defendant relief and vacate the defendant’s convictions under the criminal gang offense statute. We remand this matter to the trial court for resentencing on the defendant’s remaining convictions in accordance with the sentencing classification ranges established by the specific statutes creating the offenses, without any classification or sentence enhancement pursuant to the criminal gang offense statute.

I. Factual Background1

On June 8, 2014, Christopher Minor, a member of the Black P–Stone Nation criminal gang,2 and another gang member went to an apartment Rico Swift shared with his girlfriend, Julie Frye, on the pretext of buying marijuana. They were acting on orders from a gang leader to rob Mr. Swift, and other gang members were waiting just outside the apartment. The two men entered the apartment, and, when Mr. Swift turned his back to retrieve the marijuana, they attacked him, punching and choking him. During the assault, the other gang members entered the apartment. According to Ms. Frye, the men choked Mr. Swift until his legs "started jumping" and he turned blue. When Ms. Frye attempted to leave the room to grab a knife to assist Mr. Swift, the defendant followed her and struck her with a gun, knocking her unconscious. By the time Ms. Frye regained consciousness, the assailants were gone, but Mr. Swift was lying on the sofa, unconscious and badly injured in a pool of his own blood. Emergency personnel were summoned, but Mr. Swift died from the injuries he sustained. Ms. Frye later discovered that the assailants had also stolen items from her purse.

Days later, police investigators linked the defendant to the crime. They showed Ms. Frye a photographic array, and she identified the defendant as the person who beat Mr. Swift and knocked her unconscious. When the officers questioned the defendant, he admitted being present at Mr. Swift’s apartment, but he denied any involvement in assaulting Mr. Swift or Ms. Frye. According to the defendant, he was simply a scout and left the apartment and advised the gang members waiting outside not to go through with the planned robbery because Mr. Swift was not alone. The defendant admitted accepting his share of the proceeds from the robbery, however, explaining that he would have been disciplined by the gang had he refused.

The Madison County Grand Jury returned a sixteen-count indictment charging the defendant with two counts of felony murder,3 two counts of aggravated robbery,4 one count of aggravated burglary,5 one count of aggravated assault,6 six counts of violating the criminal gang offense statute,7 which corresponded to the preceding six offenses charged in the indictment, one count of being a convicted felon in possession of a handgun,8 one count of employing a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony,9 one count of being a convicted felon who employed a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony,10 and one additional count of violating the criminal gang offense statute, which corresponded to the charge of being a convicted felon in possession of a handgun.11 In the first phase of the defendant’s bifurcated trial, the jury convicted him on the charges of felony murder, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, aggravated assault, and employing a firearm during the commission of the dangerous felony of aggravated burglary. In the second phase of the trial, the jury convicted the defendant on the remaining charges, including the seven counts of violating the criminal gang offense statute. These convictions qualified the defendant for sentencing on the criminal gang offenses at "one (1) classification higher than the classification established by the specific statute[s] creating the offense[s] committed." Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-121(b).12

The transcript of the sentencing hearing is not included in the record on appeal, but the judgments reflect the trial court’s decision to merge several of the defendant’s convictions and impose a total effective sentence of life plus twenty years. Although the record is not crystal clear, at least ten years of the defendant’s effective sentence resulted from enhancement under the criminal gang offense statute. Additionally, the trial court recorded the defendant’s convictions of aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, aggravated assault, and felon in possession of a handgun as one classification higher than the classifications established by the statutes creating the offenses, as authorized by the criminal gang offense statute. Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-121(b).

After the defendant’s trial but during the pendency of his appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeals issued a decision in another case which declared the criminal gang offense statute unconstitutional. Bonds, 502 S.W.3d at 152–62. In his appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals, the defendant relied on Bonds to attack—for the first time—the constitutionality of the criminal gang offense statute, arguing that his convictions under the statute should be vacated and his case remanded to the trial court for resentencing. Minor, 2017 WL 634781, at *8-9. The defendant also challenged the sufficiency of the evidence to support his convictions. Id. at *7. The State countered that the evidence sufficiently supported the defendant’s convictions, that the defendant had waived his constitutional challenge to the statute by failing to raise the issue in the trial court, and that the defendant was not entitled to relief on his constitutional claim via the plain error doctrine. Id. A majority of the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with the State’s arguments and affirmed the defendant’s convictions and sentences. Id. at *9.

In applying the plain error doctrine and answering the question of whether a clear and unequivocal rule of law had been breached, the majority in the Court of Criminal Appeals focused on the law existing at the time of the defendant’s trial rather than at the time of appeal and concluded that no breach had occurred because, like any other statute, the criminal gang offense statute was presumptively constitutional until later declared invalid by Bonds. Id. One judge dissented and would have reversed and vacated the defendant’s convictions under the criminal gang offense statute. The dissenting judge opined that even though he had not raised the issue in the trial court, the defendant was entitled to the benefit of the ruling in Bonds unconstrained by the plain error doctrine because his case was pending on appeal when Bonds was decided. Id. at *11 (McMullen, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). We granted the defendant’s application for permission to appeal, and in the order doing so, notified the parties of this Court’s particular interest "in briefing and argument on the effect, if any, of Henderson v. United States, 568 U.S. 266 [133 S.Ct. 1121, 185 L.Ed.2d 85] (2013)." State v. Minor, W2016-00348-SC-R11-CD (Tenn. July 20, 2017) (order granting Tennessee Rule of Appellate Procedure 11 application).

II. Standards of Review

This appeal requires us to determine the standards that apply when a defendant fails to challenge the constitutionality of a statute at trial but raises the issue on appeal based on an intervening appellate court decision declaring the statute unconstitutional.13 Encompassed within this general issue are several more specific questions regarding the interplay among appellate review preservation requirements, the plain error doctrine, and the retroactive application of appellate court decisions. All of these issues are questions of law to which de novo review applies. See State v. Knowles, 470 S.W.3d 416, 423 (Tenn. 2015) ("Whether the plain error doctrine has been satisfied is a question of law which we review de novo."); Bush v. State, 428 S.W.3d 1, 16 (Tenn. 2014) (stating that whether a new rule of constitutional law is entitled to retroactive application is a question of law subject to de novo review); State v. Cooper, 321 S.W.3d 501, 506 (Tenn. 2010) (explaining that de novo review applies to the determination of whether a defendant is...

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