State v. Vance
| Decision Date | 25 February 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. M2017-01037-SC-R11-CD,M2017-01037-SC-R11-CD |
| Citation | 596 S.W.3d 229 |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE of Tennessee v. Alexander R. VANCE and Damonta M. Meneese |
David A. Collins, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Alexander R. Vance.
Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Andrée Sophia Blumstein, Solicitor General; Sarah K. Campbell, Special Assistant to the Solicitor General and the Attorney General; Glenn R. Funk, District Attorney General; and Amy Hunter, Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, the State of Tennessee.
We granted permission to appeal to the Defendant, Alexander R. Vance,1 to determine whether the trial court committed reversible error by permitting the State to elicit testimony about a statement made by a non-testifying codefendant whose trial was severed and whose statements were the subject of a motion in limine the trial court had granted. The trial court permitted the testimony after determining that defense counsel had "opened the door" during cross-examination and that the doctrine of curative admissibility permitted the testimony in order to correct a misleading impression created by the cross-examination. The defense objected to the testimony on various grounds. Those grounds did not include constitutional claims under the state and federal confrontation clauses.2 After the close of proof, the jury convicted the Defendant of one count of second degree murder, an alternative count of first degree felony murder, especially aggravated robbery, and three counts of aggravated assault. The trial court merged the second degree murder conviction into the first degree murder conviction and imposed an effective sentence of life imprisonment plus twenty-one years. In his motion for new trial, the Defendant reiterated his arguments against the admission of the "curative" testimony and raised for the first time a contention that the testimony violated his constitutional rights of confrontation. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the trial court’s judgments. Applying plain error review to the Defendant’s constitutional claims, we hold that, while the trial court erred in admitting the contested testimony, substantial justice does not require that plain error relief be granted. We also hold that the Defendant is not entitled to relief on the claims he preserved for plenary review. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals.
As a result of the December 2012 homicide of Stephen Milliken, the Defendant was indicted in August 2014 with codefendants Joshua LaShawn Meneese and Damonta M. Meneese3 on one count of first degree premeditated murder; one (alternative) count of first degree felony murder; one count of especially aggravated robbery; and three counts of aggravated assault.
At the hearing on this motion, the State acknowledged that Joshua "did make a statements [sic]." The State also asserted that it did not expect to call Joshua as a witness and that it was not planning to introduce his statements. The trial court granted the motion.
The Defendant and Damonta proceeded to a jury trial, held in mid-November 2016. Prior to the presentation of any proof, the prosecutor read the indictment to the jury, including the names of all three charged defendants. After the prosecutor concluded, the trial court advised the jury as follows:
The following proof was then adduced.
On the night of December 26, 2012, the eighteen-year-old murder victim, Stephen Milliken, arranged to sell some studio equipment. He loaded the equipment into the trunk of the car belonging to his girlfriend, Jalisa Harris. Also accompanying the victim were his older brother, Christopher Holt, and a friend, Prince Myles. Mr. Myles was also Ms. Harris’ roommate. Ms. Harris drove the car to Trinity Hills Apartments in Nashville, Tennessee, to meet the buyer. The victim sat in the front passenger seat, Mr. Holt sat behind the victim, and Mr. Myles sat behind Ms. Harris.
When they first arrived at the meeting place, the expected buyer was not there. They drove to a nearby gas station, and the victim made a phone call. Assured by the person the victim called that the sale was still on, the four drove back to the apartment complex. There, in an area where the street lights were not working, they saw several individuals standing in front of the breezeway. Ms. Harris later identified one of these persons as Joshua, who was known by the nickname "Neno." She explained that she knew Neno because he was friends with Mr. Myles and came to her apartment frequently. She also recognized one of the other men as one of Joshua’s brothers, whom she had heard was called "Monte." When asked to identify Damonta at trial, she said she thought the codefendant was Damonta but was not sure because it had been so long since the encounter. She clarified that she had been given Damonta’s name by Mr. Myles. She did not recognize the third man and did not get a good look at him. She stated that both Damonta and the third man had been wearing hoodies with the hoods up.
During the encounter, Neno approached one of the car’s windows and spoke with Ms. Harris. The victim and Mr. Myles got out of the car and went to the trunk. Ms. Harris popped the trunk open, obscuring the view of what was occurring behind the car. Damonta and the third man also went behind the car.
Ms. Harris testified that she then saw the victim lying on the ground, on his stomach, but added that she could not see everything that was happening. After about two minutes, she saw Mr. Myles backing up to her side of the car with his hands up. She heard him saying "something along the lines of like y’all are doing this to me too," which she described as "I guess just kind of pleading his case." She saw the third man pointing a gun at Mr. Myles. She later saw Neno waving a gun as he walked up the breezeway.
Ms. Harris testified that, when the victim got back in the car, She added that, when the victim got out of the car, he had his cell phone but that when he returned to the passenger seat, he no longer had his phone. She did not know if anything else was taken from him, but added that "they" took the studio equipment.
Ms. Harris heard Mr. Myles arguing with the men but could not tell what they were saying. Mr. Myles then got back into the rear left passenger seat. As she started to pull away, she heard Neno say from the breezeway, "Shoot them, Cuz, shoot at them Cuz." She heard gunshots and felt them hitting the car, so she sped off. She stated that she heard "at least five" gunshots.
When she realized that the victim had been shot, she drove directly to Skyline Hospital, a short distance away. She later spoke with the police and gave them permission to search her car and "do whatever they needed to do" with it. She later identified Neno from a photographic array. Shown another array that did not contain photographs of Neno, Damonta, or the Defendant, she did not identify anyone but told the officer that the person depicted in photograph number four looked "most like the person she saw because of his eyes" and that she knew the person’s name was "Alex because Prince Myles called his name." Shown a photographic array containing the Defendant’s photograph, she did not make an identification. Shown a photographic array containing Damonta’s photograph, she did not make an identification.
On cross-examination, Ms. Harris acknowledged that she told officers on that night that she did not know anyone other than Neno, but clarified that she had seen Damonta before but did not know his name. She reiterated that she got the name "Damonta" from Mr. Myles. Asked if "the majority of [her] knowledge about the inner-workings of this case came from Prince Myles," she answered, "Yes." On redirect, she clarified that, by her answer, she meant "[t]he names." She also stated that, as far as she could tell, the victim and Mr. Myles had been close friends.
The victim’s older brother, Mr. Holt, also testified at trial. He explained that the victim wanted to sell his studio equipment for $200 in order to buy some steel-toed boots for a new job. Asked if he knew to whom the victim was planning to sell his equipment, he answered, "As far as I knew it was just, it was Neno and his people...." He knew of Neno from having previously seen him "a couple of times."
Mr. Holt testified that, after they arrived at the apartment complex, Neno spoke with Ms. Harris. She popped the...
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