Pennington v. State

478 S.W.2d 892, 1971 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 477
Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee·Decided December 20, 1971·Published·Cited by 50 cases

Opinion

OPINION

, MITCHELL, Judge.

On July 13, 1970 the Grand Jury in the Criminal Court of Scott County, Tennessee returned an indictment against Clifton Delbert Pennington, James Pennington, Robert Lee Lawson, and Martha Carol Pennington, charging murder in the first degree of Dr. D. T. Chambers on or about the 29th day of May, 1970.

The court found the three Penningtons indigent and appointed counsel for them. On August 22, 1970 on their motion and petition they were granted a severance and a change of venue and their case was transferred to the Criminal Court of Anderson County, Tennessee for trial.

Clifton Delbert Pennington, James Pennington and Martha Carol Pennington, who will be referred to as defendants or by name, represented by court appointed counsel, were on October 7, 1970 convicted in the Criminal Court of Anderson County, Tennessee of murder in the first degree in the slaying of Dr. D. T. Chambers on the 29th day of May, 1970. The jury fixed the punishment of Clifton Delbert Pennington and James Pennington at ninety-nine (99) years each in the penitentiary and Martha Carol Pennington’s punishment at fifty (50) years in the penitentiary.

The motion for a new trial was heard and overruled on February 19, 1971 and judgment on the verdict was pronounced by the Trial Judge Honorable D. L. Hut-son.

Dr. D. T. Chambers, an aged prominent physician, lived alone in his stately two story brick residence with tall white columns across the front, at Norma near the Kentucky line, in Scott County, Tennessee. Dr. Chambers, because of his feeble condition, walked with a cane and his vision was impaired to such an extent that it was ineffective without the aid of his glasses.

Late on the night of May 29, or early morning of May 30, 1970 Dr. Chambers’ lifeless form was discovered lying with his body on the bed and his feet on the floor in his bedroom. The top of his face and his head had been shot away by a blast from a shotgun at close range. Particles of flesh and bone and spots of blood were on the floor and the walls of the room and pieces of his spectacle frame were found at different places on the floor. Dr. Chambers habitually kept a safe in his home and he was the only person shown to have knowledge of the combination. After his death it was necessary for skilled persons with appropriate tools to drill into the safe, where they found among other things, a memorandum of the serial numbers of his .32 caliber Smith and Wesson Special revolver, and of his shotgun.

*894 A diligent, relentless and skillful investigation was conducted by the Sheriff’s Office and the Tennessee Bureau of Criminal Identification, together with the valuable assistance of law enforcement agencies of Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana who worked on the case day and night. Early fragmentary information pointed the finger of suspicion toward the three defendants. It was found that the defendants Clifton Pennington, his wife Carol Pennington and his brother James Pennington had on the evening of May 29, 1970 been riding around with Robert Lee Lawson and his wife Brenda in Brenda’s automobile frequenting beer taverns in the Oneida area and taking trips into Kentucky adjacent to Oneida and Scott County.

It was learned that the defendant James Pennington, immediately after the murder had returned his shotgun to his grandmother’s house, where he had been living part of the time, and from which he had surreptitiously taken the shotgun the same evening and prior to the fatal shooting of Dr. Chambers. That Effie Pennington, who lived with and looked after James Pennington’s grand-mother, was heard to tell James Pennington to put the gun back, and as James left the house he had something sticking down in each side of his clothes, believed to have been the shotgun which could be disassembled into three parts or pieces.

Brenda Lawson freely and voluntarily testified on behalf of the prosecution and gave the following testimony which is the basis of the State’s theory.

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Pennington v. State, 478 S.W.2d 892, 1971 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 477 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1971).

478 S.W.2d 892 (Pennington v. State) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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