State v. Reynolds

• Docket Number: M2022-00480-CCA-R3-CD
• Decision Date: 06 June 2023
• Parties: STATE OF TENNESSEE v. RANDY O. REYNOLDS
• Court: Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals

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STATE OF TENNESSEE v. RANDY O. REYNOLDS

No. M2022-00480-CCA-R3-CD

Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, Nashville

June 6, 2023

Session April 11, 2023

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Dickson County No. 2019-CR-506 David D. Wolfe, Judge

Defendant Randy O. Reynolds, stands convicted by a Dickson County jury of aggravated vehicular homicide (Count 1), vehicular homicide (Count 2), reckless homicide (Count 3), vehicular assault by driving under the influence (Count 4), simple possession of a schedule II controlled substance (Count 5) leaving the scene of an accident (Count 6), evading arrest (Count 7), and driving on a revoked license (Count 8). On appeal, Defendant argues (1) the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress the results of his blood alcohol test (2) the trial court erred in allowing the State to present expert testimony regarding the effects of intoxication; and (3) the evidence produced at trial was insufficient to support his all of his felony convictions, and his misdemeanor evading arrest conviction. After a thorough review of the record and applicable law, we affirm.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgments of the Circuit Court Affirmed

Timothy Wills, Nashville, Tennessee, for the Defendant, Randy O. Reynolds.

Jonathan Skrmetti, Attorney General and Reporter; Garrett D. Ward, Assistant Attorney General; W. Ray Crouch, Jr., District Attorney General; and Jack Arnold, Assistant District Attorney General, for the Appellee, State of Tennessee.

Matthew J. Wilson, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which Robert W. Wedemeyer and Camille R. McMullen, JJ., joined.

OPINION

MATTHEW J. WILSON, JUDGE

I. Factual and Procedural Background

A. Procedural Summary

This case arises from an October 20, 2019 motor vehicle crash in which Defendant crossed the center line of a highway, struck a car driven by the victim, Irma Ortiz, and killed her. Ms. Ortiz's passenger, Paul "C.J." Pewitt, was injured. Defendant left the scene on foot and was located about a half-mile from the crash site approximately two hours later. After Defendant's blood was collected and tested, it showed the presence of methamphetamine and diazepam. The Dickson County Grand Jury returned an eight-count indictment charging Defendant with aggravated vehicular homicide, vehicular homicide by intoxication, vehicular homicide by reckless conduct, vehicular assault by driving under the influence, possession of methamphetamine with intent to sell, leaving the scene of an accident involving death, evading arrest, and driving on a revoked license.

B. Suppression Hearing Testimony

Before trial, Defendant filed a motion to suppress the warrantless collection of his blood after the crash. At the suppression hearing, Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) Trooper Patrick Binkley testified that at "about 3:39 [p.m.]" on Sunday, October 20, 2019, he was dispatched to the crash site on Highway 70 in Dickson County near Montgomery Bell State Park. When he arrived, Trooper Binkley saw a Ford F-250 pickup truck upside down in a ditch and a smaller Nissan car that "appear[ed] to have the top ripped off." Passersby who had stopped at the scene told Trooper Binkley the F-250 had nobody inside, so he went to the Nissan. He saw the driver was dead and the front seat passenger was injured. After other law enforcement arrived to secure the scene, Trooper Binkley and some of the other officers began looking for the Ford's driver.

Trooper Binkley testified that about forty-five minutes to an hour after the accident, officers arrived at the home of the truck's registered owner, James Vandivort, who told the officers that he had "loaned" his vehicle to Defendant. About one hour after the meeting with Mr. Vandivort, Chief Ranger Shane Petty of the Tennessee State Parks notified Trooper Binkley that he (Petty) and his K-9 unit had found Defendant "several hundred yards away from the accident scene behind a house and on property located adjacent to Montgomery Bell Park." Trooper Binkley then went to that location.

When Trooper Binkley first encountered Defendant-two to three hours after the trooper first arrived at the crash site-the trooper found Defendant to be "[m]ore or less incoherent, non-responsive. On the nod is a term that's thrown around, meaning basically moments of coherence, able to speak and comprehend, and then the next moment incoherent or unconscious perhaps, typically consistent with drug use." Although neither Defendant nor the Ford truck smelled of alcoholic beverages and no open alcoholic beverage containers were found in the truck, Trooper Binkley believed Defendant "was under the influence of some type of depressant or something that would basically suppress the central nervous system to where he couldn't retain consciousness." Accordingly, Trooper Binkley decided to obtain a sample of Defendant's blood. Trooper Binkley attempted to gain Defendant's consent to have the blood drawn voluntarily, but Defendant's condition rendered him unable to give consent. Trooper Binkley did not obtain a search warrant for Defendant's blood. The trooper explained his reasons for foregoing a warrant in this exchange with the prosecutor:

Prosecutor: How long would it have taken you if you started the warrant process at 6:00 to get a warrant made out and signed by a Magistrate?

Trooper Binkley: It would have added at least an hour if I were able to do it locally because I would not only have to draft the warrant but I would also have to drive to Charlotte to meet with the Magistrate. So we are honestly talking about-I mean we are talking about an hour and a half to two hours traveling there, issuing the search warrant, and traveling back to the scene assuming they would still be there.

The trooper explained the process would have taken even longer had Defendant been transported to a hospital in Nashville-as persons with more serious injuries often were- because the trooper would have to draft a second warrant for a Davidson County judge or magistrate to sign. Trooper Binkley acknowledged he believed exigent circumstances existed for him to bypass the warrant in obtaining Defendant's blood based on these difficulties and the amount of time that had passed since the crash (he guessed somewhere between three and four hours). In his experience, Trooper Binkley understood that intoxicating substances would dissipate from a person's blood over time. But the trooper also acknowledged that other factors, such as a head injury, could have led to Defendant's incoherent state.

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) Special Agent April Bramlage conducted the toxicology analysis in this case. She testified that a person metabolized substances in the blood over time, stating that if after taking an intoxicating substance the person "had not taken any drug in between in a four hour period . . . we can expect levels to be going down." She also stated that certain drugs could be eliminated from the body quickly, especially when taken in small doses. When asked whether the saline administered as part of blood transfusions could "damage" the readings in blood samples, Agent Bramlage replied, "It's possible. I know it would have more of an [effect] on an alcohol result." She explained that she could "do a pretty good estimate of . . . back extrapolation" when testing blood alcohol levels, but she could not conduct similar calculations for non-alcohol drug intoxication levels "because people metabolize drugs differently and it's not across the board for drugs as it is for alcohol." She added that unlike alcohol, which has a relatively uniform rate of metabolism across body types, the degree to which a person metabolized other drugs was "based on [persons'] genetics." Thus, she preferred "trying to get a [blood] sample as close to when an event occurred as possible so that the result that we get can be as accurate as to what was in a person's blood at the time[.]"

After the hearing, the trial court denied Defendant's motion to suppress the blood test, stating,

All right. Thank you both. The Court has reviewed the case of [State v. Scarlet I. Martin, No M2016-00615-CCA-R3-CD, 2017 WL 1957810 (Tenn. Crim. App. Feb. 15, 2017)], a 2017 Court of [Criminal] Appeals Opinion authored by Justice [sic] Easter. And I have to agree with General Arnold that it would appear to me that the State v. Martin case and this case are very similar.

This is a case involving a vehicular homicide death. The Trooper, they have arrived at the scene, the driver of the one vehicle has fled the scene and there's a fatality in the other vehicle and an injured passenger. That by his testimony it was about two hours or more before they located the driver, Mr. Reynolds, and then on top of that, it took him about 20 minutes or so for him to go to the location and first come into contact. And now we are talking approximately two and a half hours before he actually had contact with the individual, and that his attempts to obtain consent, for a blood draw while trying to get him into the ambulance is that he was more unconscious than conscious, showing signs of impairment from nodding off and so forth.

As a result of that, where we are according to the Officer's testimony and by my personal experience, I have credited his testimony that it would take an hour to an hour and a half or more to obtain a search warrant. Now we are talking in terms of three and a half to four hours from the time of the accident. I believe in fact these facts do constitute exigent circumstances sufficient to execute the warrantless blood draw under the Martin case, and I believe that for that reason, and I again credit the officer's testimony that he was responsible for securing the accident scene, trying

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