Freshwater v. State

160 S.W.3d 548, 2004 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 741
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedSeptember 1, 2004
StatusPublished
Cited by82 cases

This text of 160 S.W.3d 548 (Freshwater 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
Freshwater v. State, 160 S.W.3d 548, 2004 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 741 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2004).

Opinion

JERRY L. SMITH, J„

delivered the

opinion of the court,

in which JOSEPH M. TIPTON, and JAMES CURWOOD WITT, JR., JJ., joined.

OPINION

The petitioner, Margo Freshwater, was convicted of first degree murder in 1969. Her conviction was affirmed on direct appeal. See Freshwater v. State, 2 Tenn.Crim.App. 314, 453 S.W.2d 446 (1969). In 2003, she filed a petition for writ of error coram nobis, alleging that new evidence existed that proved her innocence, as well as complaining of violations of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), and juror misconduct that occurred at trial which necessitated a hearing and ultimately a new trial. Prior to a hearing, the trial court granted a motion to dismiss the petition because the petition was, inter alia, filed outside the statute of limitations. The petitioner seeks a reversal of the trial court’s decision on appeal. Because due process requires the tolling of the statute of limitations for filing the petition for writ of error coram nobis with respect to the petitioner’s claim of previously withheld exculpatory evidence, we reverse the judgment of the trial court and remand the matter for an evidentiary hearing on the petition. As to the remaining allegations of juror misconduct, we conclude those allegations could have and should have been addressed in a post-conviction petition and are now time-barred. Thus, we affirm the portion of the trial court’s order dismissing the part of the petition for writ of error coram nobis pertaining to those claims.

Factual Background

The petitioner and Glenn William Nash, a Memphis attorney, were indicted in March of 1968 for first degree murder and felony murder in the death of Hillman C. Robbins, Sr., a cashier of the Square D Liquor Store in Memphis. Mr. Nash took money from the register prior to taking the victim to the back room of the store where his hands were tied behind his back. The victim was shot multiple times in the head with both a .22 caliber pistol and a .38 caliber pistol. After traveling throughout the Southeast, the petitioner and Mr. Nash were eventually arrested in Mississippi.

Mr. Nash was later found incompetent to stand trial. He has never been tried *551 and the charges against him were ultimately dismissed on the basis of a speedy trial violation. The petitioner, on the other hand, was tried in Shelby County in early 1969. After a trial on the merits, the petitioner was found guilty of first degree murder.

At trial, the petitioner maintained that her participation in the robbery and subsequent flight with Mr. Nash were the result of duress and coercion. The prosecution offered evidence that the victim had been shot with a .22 caliber pistol. There was testimony introduced, through Johnny Box, 1 that the petitioner possessed a .22 caliber weapon. As a result of this testimony, the State argued that the petitioner was responsible for shooting the victim with the .22 caliber weapon. The petitioner’s testimony, on the other hand, indicated that she knew nothing of Mr. Nash’s plan to rob the liquor store or shoot the cashier and that she cooperated with Mr. Nash only because she was in fear for her life. She maintained that Mr. Nash instructed her to exit the liquor store prior to the time that the victim was killed and that she did not fire a gun. She denied that she was in any way an accomplice. After being found guilty of first degree murder, the petitioner was sentenced by the jury to a ninety-nine year sentence and sent to the Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville.

On direct appeal, this Court affirmed the conviction. See Freshwater v. State, 2 Tenn.Crim.App. 314, 453 S.W.2d 446 (1969). In that appeal, the petitioner challenged the sufficiency of the evidence, statements made by Mr. Box as inadmissible hearsay, jury instructions, her sentence, the introduction of a photograph of the deceased, and the testimony of the victim’s son. See id. The petitioner also alleged that newly discovered evidence existed which would have changed the outcome of her trial. 2 This Court determined that none of the petitioner’s allegations had merit. The opinion, written by Judge Russell, determined that the jury was “well justified” in determining that

the defendant cased the liquor store in question with Nash earlier in the day, drove him to that store that night to the exclusion of other liquor stores passed in route, waited upon a customer while Nash was in the back with the victim, had in her possession a .22 calibre pistol and bullets, and the victim was shot with both a .38 calibre pistol and a .22 calibre pistol. She drove the getaway car, lived with Nash as man and wife as they traveled all over the southeast spending the fruits of the robbery, and never at any time did anything consistent with non-involvement or coerced involvement right up to the time that both were arrested as they left a bus in Mississippi. She did testify, without corroboration, that she tried to leave Nash in Chattanooga. When finally arrested, she denied her true identity, and did absolutely nothing consistent with being a true victim of coercion.

Id. at 448-49.

On October 4, 1970, less than a year after the petitioner’s conviction was af- *552 finned, she escaped from the Tennessee Prison for Women. The petitioner remained at large until May 19, 2002, when she was apprehended and arrested in Columbus, Ohio. During the 32 years following her escape, the petitioner became a mother and grandmother and was married twice. After legal proceedings in Ohio, the petitioner was extradited to Tennessee. She later pled guilty to the charge of escape.

On February 6, 2003, the petitioner filed a petition for writ of error coram nobis. In that petition, she claimed that prior to the 1969 trial, her attorney requested any written statements that she made to any witnesses that were reduced to writing, including the written statement of “any informer once held in the DeSoto County [Mississippi] Jail.” Unknown to the petitioner’s counsel at the time of trial, trial counsel for the prosecution referred the request to the Executive Assistant Attorney General who instructed trial counsel for the prosecution to refuse to provide the entire statement of Mr. Box to the defense because Mr. Box “was not a law-enforcement officer of the State of Tennessee, and the statement was not made in Tennessee.” Apparently, Mr. Box made several statements to authorities in which he recounted his conversations with the petitioner and Mr. Nash while incarcerated in the DeSoto County, Mississippi jail. Portions of these statements were given to the petitioner during discovery, including the last page of Mr. Box’s statement, which was produced to and utilized by the defense counsel in cross-examining Mr. Box at trial. However, a portion of Mr. Box’s handwritten statement that contained statements made by Mr. Nash to Mr. Box was never turned over to defense counsel.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
160 S.W.3d 548, 2004 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 741, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/freshwater-v-state-tenncrimapp-2004.