State v. Stanton, No. E2003-02675-CCA-R3-CD (TN 4/15/2005)
| Decision Date | 15 April 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. E2003-02675-CCA-R3-CD.,E2003-02675-CCA-R3-CD. |
| Parties | STATE OF TENNESSEE v. MICHAEL LYNN STANTON. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Appeal from the Criminal Court for Knox County; No. 67854; Mary Beth Liebowitz, Judge.
Judgments of the Trial Court Reversed in Part and Affirmed in Part.
Mark E. Stephens, District Public Defender; and John Halstead and Robert C. Edwards, Assistant District Public Defenders, for the appellant, Michael Lynn Stanton.
Paul G. Summers, Attorney General & Reporter; Kathy D. Aslinger, Assistant Attorney General; and Phillip Morton and Paula Hamm, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.
Gary R. Wade, P.J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which Joseph M. Tipton and J. Curwood Witt, Jr., joined.
The defendant, Michael Lynn Stanton, was convicted of first degree murder, attempted first degree murder, and two counts of aggravated burglary. The jury returned a verdict of life without parole for the murder conviction. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-204. The trial court imposed sentences of sixty years for the attempted murder conviction and fifteen years for each of the aggravated burglary convictions. The trial court ordered consecutive service, but with the aggravated burglary sentences to be served concurrently to one another, for an effective sentence of life without parole plus seventy-five years. In this appeal of right, the defendant asserts that the trial court erred by (1) permitting evidence of prior bad acts; (2) denying his motion for judgment of acquittal on the first degree murder charges; (3) admitting an audiotape recording of a hospital interview with the victim; (4) limiting impeachment of a state witness; (5) failing to declare a mistrial after the state attempted to call a bailiff as a witness; and (6) failing to grant a judgment of acquittal on the aggravated burglary charge contained in count 5 of the indictment or, in the alternative, failing to merge the two aggravated burglary convictions. Because the defendant was entitled to a judgment of acquittal on the aggravated burglary charge of count 5, that conviction is reversed and the charge is dismissed. Otherwise, the judgments of the trial court are affirmed.
In June of 1993, the defendant married Tiffany Wensell, approximately one month before
she gave birth to their daughter, Brooke. Prior to the marriage, the defendant had exhibited signs of jealousy and abuse, including having struck her in the shoulder with a cordless phone. Within a year after the marriage, Ms. Wensell was visiting her sister-in-law next door and had taken a baby monitor while her daughter was asleep. When the defendant, who had been drinking, arrived at the residence, he became angry and accused Ms. Wensell of having had affairs with a variety of other men, including his brother-in-law. According to Ms. Wensell, the defendant "grabbed onto the handrails of the stairs, and . . . came down like a karate . . . type kick right to the chest." Afterward, the defendant attempted to drive away with his daughter but Ms. Wensell climbed into the bed of his pickup truck and removed the child through the back sliding window. Neighbors intervened when the defendant began to drive away as Ms. Wensell tried to carry the child from the bed of the truck. The couple separated briefly but reconciled and had a son, Mike, in February of 1995.
According to Ms. Wensell, the defendant drank daily. One evening in November of 1996, she returned home late from work after stopping at a co-worker's residence to borrow some clothes. When she arrived, the defendant, who had been drinking to excess, confronted her and, while she was drying her children after a bath, struck her twice in the face with his fist. According to Ms. Wensell, the defendant then announced that he intended to kill himself, went to their bedroom, and fired a 30.06 rifle into the wall. When the defendant later passed out, Ms. Wensell took her two children to the residence of her mother and stepfather and, on the following day, obtained an order of protection from a court. A few days later, Ms. Wensell returned to her residence to attempt to obtain some clothing. When she determined that the defendant's vehicle was not in the driveway, she went inside, saw that the living room was "a wreck," and observed that the television was missing, the VCR was broken, a large stuffed bear had been decapitated, and a blanket had been hung over the picture window. In her son's bedroom, a hammer had been thrown through the television screen, and in the kitchen, the refrigerator had been overturned and the telephone had been torn from the wall. According to Ms. Wensell, the defendant suddenly emerged from their bedroom, struck her with his fist, dragged her into the bedroom, and then raped her. As he did so, she saw "bullets all over the bed." When she attempted to escape, the defendant threw her keys into the yard and "pushed" a knife into her right side, causing a puncture wound. Ms. Wensell was able to leave only because her brother and stepfather, who were on their way to a movie, happened to stop by the residence.
As a result of the incident, the defendant was arrested for rape and aggravated assault and Ms. Wensell and her children were able to move back into the residence. The defendant was later convicted on each charge.
On February 11, 1997, while the charges were still pending, the defendant, who had arranged for his son to stay overnight with him, telephoned and informed Ms. Wensell that he was returning the child because he had an ear infection. Even though Ms. Wensell objected because of snow and ice on the roadways, the defendant arrived at 1:00 a.m. with their son in an unsecured car seat. According to Ms. Wensell, she ran to the vehicle, took custody of her son, and then returned to the residence and locked the door. When the defendant kicked a hole in the door and displayed a hunting knife, she telephoned her mother and stepfather and the defendant left. Afterward the defendant was charged with and ultimately convicted of attempted burglary for which he spent eight months in jail. By June of 1997, Ms Wensell, who by then had begun a relationship with Jody Reynolds, filed suit for divorce.
Almost two years passed before the incident which led to the charges at issue. At approximately 9 or 10 a.m. on April 3, 1999, Ms. Wensell picked up her daughter at the residence the defendant shared with his parents. Later, at approximately 8 or 9 p.m., after having dinner at the residence of Reynolds's mother, Ms. Wensell and Reynolds returned with the children to her residence. After the children had been placed in bed, Ms. Wensell saw headlights in the driveway and immediately telephoned her mother and stepfather because, in the past, they had been able to get there to help more quickly than the police. She asked Reynolds to go to the bedroom where she kept a gun for protection purposes.
According to Ms. Wensell, the defendant knocked on the door, cursed, and demanded to be allowed inside. She did not respond and the defendant left the front porch. Ms. Wensell then heard a gunshot from the back of the residence, ran towards her daughter's bedroom, and saw the defendant pointing a gun at her through a window. As she turned to run, she was shot in the upper right shoulder and then heard another shot before Reynolds appeared in the doorway to check on her. Ms. Wensell recalled that Reynolds then took the two children, both of whom had been awakened, to the living room just before the arrival of her stepfather, Larry Sharp. According to Ms. Wensell, Sharp prayed with her before walking out into the hallway, where he was shot and fell face down. Ms. Wensell heard two more gunshots before the defendant asked his daughter "to call 911 for daddy." When Ms. Wensell called out for Sharp, the defendant responded, "I shot him." As she lay in the fetal position, "play[ing] dead," she overheard the defendant say, "Oh God, I can't believe I've done this."
At trial, Ms. Wensell acknowledged that she had repeatedly visited the defendant while he was in jail on the various charges she had brought against him since 1993, explaining that he had asked her to visit and to bring the children with her. She admitted that she had spent the night with the defendant on several occasions but insisted that she had been forced to do so. Ms. Wensell, who took the children to the defendant's residence for visitation every other weekend, asserted that any time she spent with the defendant since their separation was in relation to child visitation. While aware that Reynolds had once made a threat toward the defendant, Ms. Wensell emphasized that she had not asked Reynolds to intervene on her behalf.
Reynolds, who had dated the victim during high school, testified that he began to see her again in early 1997 and that while their relationship was occasionally intimate, Ms. Wensell had always insisted that they merely be friends. He recalled that in 1998, the defendant, upon being released from jail, telephoned him and, after initially thanking him for watching after "the kids," became confrontational. He also acknowledged that sometime later in the year, he became angry when he saw Ms. Wensell's vehicle at the defendant's residence after 2:00 A.M., leaving a "nasty note" on her windshield, and sounding his horn as he left.
Reynolds testified that on the day of the shooting at approximately 11:00 p.m., he was watching television with Ms. Wensell when she cried out, "Oh, my God, it's [the defendant]," and immediately telephoned her stepfather, Larry Sharp. According to Reynolds, he initially hid in the bedroom hoping that the defendant would leave. He recalled that when the defendant went to the back of the residence and attempted to kick in the kitchen door, he found a loaded shotgun...
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