State of Tennessee v. Jurico Readus

CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedJanuary 16, 2013
DocketW2011-01544-CCA-R3-CD
StatusPublished

This text of State of Tennessee v. Jurico Readus (State of Tennessee v. Jurico Readus) 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
State of Tennessee v. Jurico Readus, (Tenn. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT JACKSON Assigned on Briefs July 10, 2012

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. JURICO READUS

Appeal from the Criminal Court for Shelby County No. 06-06163 Carolyn Wade Blackett, Judge

No. W2011-01544-CCA-R3-CD - Filed January 16, 2013

A jury convicted the defendant, Jurico Readus, of one count of first degree (felony) murder of Luis Reyes Hernandez, and two counts of attempted especially aggravated robbery,class B felonies. The trial court merged the count of attempted especially aggravated robbery of Luis Reyes Hernandez with the first degree (felony) murder conviction, for which the defendant received a life sentence. The defendant was sentenced to serve ten years, concurrently with his life sentence, for the attempted especially aggravated robbery of Jary Reyes. On appeal, the defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence underlying his convictions and the voluntariness of his confession which was obtained while he was a juvenile. After a thorough review of the record, we conclude that there was no reversible error and affirm the judgments of the trial court.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgments of the Criminal Court Affirmed

J OHN E VERETT W ILLIAMS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which A LAN E. G LENN and C AMILLE R. M CM ULLEN, J.J., joined.

Stephen Bush, District Public Defender; Clifford Abeles and Sanjeev Memula, Assistant District Public Defenders, at trial; and Phyllis Aluko, Assistant District Public Defender, on appeal, for the appellant, Jurico Readus.

Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter; Clarence E. Lutz, Assistant Attorney General; Amy P. Weirich, District Attorney General; and Paul Goodman and Glenda Adams, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

Factual History On March 19, 2006, the victims, Luis Reyes Hernandez and his nephew, Jary Reyes, were approached by two men who demanded their money. Both victims were shot when a struggle ensued, and Mr. Hernandez was killed. The sixteen-year-old defendant gave a statement to police in which he confessed his involvement with the crimes. The defendant and his cousin, Toddreck Watts, who also received a gunshot wound that day, were charged with the crimes and tried separately.

Prior to trial, the defendant moved to suppress the statement he had given to the police. Sergant Connie Justice, of the Memphis Police Department testified that the defendant first came to the attention of police when Sergeant Justice went to the hospital to interview the surviving victim and noticed a young man with a gunshot wound being dropped off and admitted to the hospital. She determined that the young man, the co-defendant, had been shot in suspicious proximity to the shooting which she was investigating. The co- defendant’s mother then brought the defendant to the hospital, and Sergeant Justice spoke with him briefly at around 11:00 or 11:30 a.m. regarding who he was and what had happened to his cousin, the co-defendant. The defendant’s parents, who had been at church, arrived at the hospital, and Sergeant Justice told them that the police “needed to speak with him and it needed to be at our office.”

Sergeant Justice and a uniformed police officer drove the defendant to the police station, and the defendant’s parents followed in their car. At the police station, the defendant was placed in a room alone and shackled to a bench, as was “customary” policy in the department. Sergeant Justice told the defendant’s parents that they should discuss whether they would allow police to interview the defendant. While other witnesses were being interviewed, the defendant’s parents made the decision to let police speak with their son. Sergeant Justice testified that the defendant was never interviewed at the police station without his parents present. At 4:23 p.m., the defendant was presented with an advice of rights form which he was asked to partially read aloud in order to determine whether he was literate. The defendant and his step-father both read and signed the form. The police then questioned the defendant with his step-father present, and the defendant told police a version of events which differed from his prior version in the location of the co-defendant’s shooting. The police left the room and spoke with the defendant’s step-father, who said he would advise the defendant to tell the truth. The defendant, with his mother and step-father both in the room, gave a statement confessing to shooting the victims in the course of attempting to rob them. The statement was started at 6:08 p.m. and preceded by an advice of rights. Sergeant Justice testified that the defendant and his parents were not promised anything, threatened, coerced, or pressured. On cross-examination, Sergeant Justice clarified that when she spoke with the defendant at the hospital regarding his cousin’s injury, the location he

-2- gave for the shooting did not match that given by his cousin. She stated that the uniformed officer who accompanied her rode in the back with the defendant when he was taken to the police station.

The defendant testified at the suppression hearing that he was sixteen years old at the time of the crime and that he had never been questioned by the police. He testified that Sergeant Justice spoke to him for approximately five minutes at the hospital and asked him about the homicide. He testified that she informed him he would be taken to the homicide office and that he did not feel free to leave. He was left shackled in a room for “a couple” of hours during which he had no contact with anyone and was not offered food, drink, or the use of the restroom. He testified that Sergeant Justice then questioned him for ten minutes alone regarding the homicide. The defendant stated that he was then questioned further with his step-father in the room and that he was not given an advice of rights at this point. He testified that he was given the opportunity to speak with his step-father without police present. However, he testified that he was not given his advice of rights form until after he had given a statement admitting guilt, and that he only signed the advice of rights because he felt he had “already told them what happened.” He did not understand his right to remain silent or right to an attorney and stated he would not have given a statement if he had been advised of his rights. On cross-examination, the defendant stated he had also not been advised of his rights during either of two prior incidents in which he was arrested for assault and disorderly conduct. He acknowledged that his statement was accurate, that it had been taken in the presence of a parent, that he had read it before he signed it, and that he had not been threatened or promised anything in exchange for giving it.

The trial court denied the motion to suppress, finding that the defendant had been advised of his rights when the custodial interrogation was begun and that he had knowingly and voluntarily waived his rights. The trial court found that the defendant had been advised of his rights twice before giving the statement. The trial court further found that there was probable cause to arrest the defendant when he was taken to the police station, although it concluded that the defendant was not under arrest at the time, that he “voluntarily went to the police station,” and that his shackled leg “was merely customary and police policy.” The trial court concluded the confession would be admissible at trial.

At trial, the State first presented the testimony of Adrian Triplett, an officer with the Memphis Police Department who was first to respond to the shooting between 10:05 and 10:08 a.m. Officer Triplett found two men shot, and he called an ambulance and secured the scene.

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Bluebook (online)
State of Tennessee v. Jurico Readus, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-of-tennessee-v-jurico-readus-tenncrimapp-2013.