Carroll v. State

517 S.W.2d 13, 1974 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 298
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedJune 25, 1974
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 517 S.W.2d 13 (Carroll v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Carroll v. State, 517 S.W.2d 13, 1974 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 298 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1974).

Opinion

OPINION

O’BRIEN, Judge.

Defendant, Dennis Carroll, was convicted of selling heroin' and sentenced to not less than nor more than five years confinement in the State Penitentiary.

On this appeal twenty-two assignments of error are submitted.

The first three assignments of error attack the weight and sufficiency of the evidence.

In summary, the State’s proof was that two undercover agents for the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department, in the company of a paid informer, each purchased a [15]*15packet of heroin from the defendant. Defendant was identified to the agents by the informer, who, after the purchase by them returned and made an additional purchase on his own behalf.

Defendant did not testify but introduced witnesses to establish an alibi. An employee of the City of Memphis Hospital placed defendant in the emergency room of the hospital for emergency treatment of a shotgun wound at 10:S3 P.M. on August 25th, 1972. This was some three hours after the time of the alleged sale. Defendant was admitted to the hospital for observation some time after midnight, and was discharged on the following day, August 27th. His mother testified that he lived with her and spent most nights at home but did stay out some nights. She did not know if he had another place to stay. She remembered a day in August when he came into the house about dusk dark suffering from a shotgun wound. She observed the wound in his arm and urged him to go to the hospital, but he said it wasn’t that bad. She looked and could not see anything, just a little hole which was not bleeding. He told her he would go to the hospital himself. Rita McClain testified she lived at 784 Poplar, the address where the alleged heroin sale took place. A man named Robert Furlough, whom she described as having almost the same general physical description as Dennis Carroll, sometimes stayed with her. Furlough made his living by gambling and selling narcotics. She was acquainted with Carroll who she knew came to 784 Poplar for the purpose of buying drugs. She saw him there mostly every day. Carroll did not stay at that address and she did not know what might have happened on August 25th, 1972, and did not know whether Carroll was there on that day or not. She remembered having heard about defendant being shot from Robert Furlough and recalled it to be in the evening time between light and dark.

The evidence was adequate to warrant the verdict of the jury who had seen the witnesses and listened to their testimony. The verdict has been approved by the trial judge and defendant has failed to carry the burden imposed upon him here to show that the evidence preponderates against that verdict. See Gann v. State, 214 Tenn. 711, 383 S.W.2d 32; McBee v. State, 213 Tenn. 15, 372 S.W.2d 173; Brown v. State, 1 Tenn.Cr.App. 294, 441 S.W.2d 485.

It is contended that the trial court erred in overruling defendant’s plea in abatement to the indictment.

On April 11th, 1973, a plea in abatement was filed on behalf of defendant by his appointed counsel. This plea moved for dismissal of two indictments pending against defendant on the grounds that each indictment alleged an offense on August 25th, 1972; that the sole witnesses for the State shown on the indictments were police officers; and defendant was not arrested until after the return of the indictment on November 10th, 1972; that the action of State’s agents in delaying for two and one-half months an arrest (for an offense allegedly occurring in their presence) was a violation of defendant’s rights under the Constitution of the United States and Tennessee. On April 23rd, 1973, defendant filed a plea in abatement, pro se, alleging he was denied his rights to request a preliminary hearing under the provisions of T.C.A. Secs. 40-1311 and 40-1131 because the indictment upon which he was arrested was his first notice of the charges against him. It was further alleged that the delay between the purported date of the offense and the date of the indictment was a denial of due process which prejudiced his defense, and the failure of the State to list on the indictment names of the principal witnesses to the alleged offense was a statutory violation as well as a violation of his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

While this court recognizes that a formal charge may not be delayed for an unreasonably oppressive and unjustifiable [16]*16time between the date of an offense and the date of such formal charge, the defendant in this, case has not shown that he was prejudiced by the two and one-half month time differential in this case and we find no violation of his right to due process. There was no significant delay in arresting defendant once he had been charged or in reaching his trial upon that charge. In regard to defendant’s assertion of his right to a preliminary hearing, this court commented in Shadden v. State, Tenn.Cr.App., 488 S.W.2d 54, as follows on this issue:

“Clearly, in enacting T.C.A. § 40-1131 with its carefully designed limitation, the Legislature wisely recognized that to permit a preliminary hearing and a re-determination of the question of probable cause after return of an indictment or presentment would be intolerable. A finding of no probable cause by the committing magistrate in such a preliminary hearing would not and could not invalidate and vacate the prior presentment or indictment and discharge the accused. The futility of such a procedure is plain, and plainly was recognized by the Legislature.”
“Furthermore, the Legislature manifestly was fully cognizant of the broad inquisitorial powers vested in the Grand Jury and recognized that the power and authority of the Grand Jury to inquire into and make its own independent investigation of crimes and criminal activity within the county makes that body the single most powerful law enforcement agency in the community, and deliberately determined to preserve the Grand Jury’s vitally essential inquisitorial function. To hold otherwise, as the defendant would insist, would be to divest the Grand Jury completely of its inquisitorial function and powers and render it powerless to investigate crime in the community upon its own initiative and to return presentments to the court against individuals not previously arrested or even officially accused.”

The other grounds stated in the pleas in abatement are not valid, or have been dealt with elsewhere in this opinion. The assignment is overruled.

By the fifth assignment it is said the trial court erred in overruling defendant’s motion to quash.

The motion to quash charges only that two identical indictments were outstanding against defendant and he should not be called upon to answer both. The trial court required the State to make an election and defendant was brought to trial on one indictment. The second indictment is not contained in the technical record. The law is firmly established in this State that a motion to quash an indictment will not lie unless it is invalid upon its face. Smith v. State, 207 Tenn. 219, 338 S.W.2d 610; Yearwood v. State, 2 Tenn.Cr.App.

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Bluebook (online)
517 S.W.2d 13, 1974 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 298, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/carroll-v-state-tenncrimapp-1974.