State of Tennessee v. Kayla Marie Anderson

CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedDecember 6, 2018
DocketM2018-00015-CCA-R3-CD
StatusPublished

This text of State of Tennessee v. Kayla Marie Anderson (State of Tennessee v. Kayla Marie Anderson) 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. Kayla Marie Anderson, (Tenn. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

12/06/2018 IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT NASHVILLE September 18, 2018 Session

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. KAYLA MARIE ANDERSON

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Maury County No. 24936 David L. Allen, Judge ___________________________________

No. M2018-00015-CCA-R3-CD ___________________________________

The Defendant, Kayla Marie Anderson, pled nolo contendere to theft of property valued over five hundred dollars for her role in arranging a drug transaction during which the victim was robbed. The Defendant preserved as certified questions several issues related to her arrest, her interview, and the search of her telephone pursuant to two separate warrants. Because the record reveals the existence of inculpatory evidence not derived from the arrest, interview, or search, we determine that the questions are not dispositive and dismiss the appeal.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Appeal Dismissed

JOHN EVERETT WILLIAMS, P.J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which TIMOTHY L. EASTER and J. ROSS DYER, JJ., joined.

Brandon E. White, Columbia, Tennessee, for the appellant, Kayla Marie Anderson.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Ronald L. Coleman, Assistant Attorney General; Brent A. Cooper, District Attorney General; and Caleb Bayless, Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On December 24, 2015, the victim, Holly H., contacted the Defendant by telephone in hopes of purchasing “roxies,” an opioid pill, from the Defendant. In the course of the drug transaction, two men assaulted the victim in her vehicle and robbed her of a laptop. Law enforcement searched the Defendant’s telephone pursuant to a warrant and discovered that the Defendant had sold the victim’s laptop immediately after the robbery, and the Defendant was charged with robbery through a theory of criminal responsibility and with theft of property valued at five hundred dollars or less. The Defendant challenged the first search warrant on numerous grounds.

The facts underlying the offense and the investigation were introduced at the hearing on the first motion to suppress held on December 9, 2016. Detective Bryon Stoker of the Columbia Police Department testified that the victim told him that she had contacted a woman named Kayla, whose last name she did not know, about purchasing pills. According to the victim, Kayla stated that she would not be able to meet the victim for the drug transaction but that she would be “sending her boyfriend.” The victim gave a physical description of Kayla which fit the Defendant “to the T.” The victim likewise indicated that she had purchased drugs from Kayla in the past, and she described the location of the previous transaction as “on Nowlin Court next to the big trash can that was sitting in front of her house at the time.” Detective Stoker testified that the address helped him identify the Defendant, and the record reveals that the Defendant resided on Nowlin Court.

The first search warrant, which all the parties ultimately agreed was defective, stated that the victim arrived at the site of the prearranged drug transaction, that two men entered her car, and that the victim was punched, strangled, and bitten in the course of the robbery. The two men absconded with the victim’s bag, which contained a laptop. Detective Stoker testified at the suppression hearing that the offenders, however, left behind evidence in the form of a telephone abandoned in the victim’s vehicle. This telephone led police to connect Mr. Leslie Sparkman to the offense. At first, Detective Stoker was not aware that the Defendant and Mr. Sparkman were in a relationship, but he acquired the information “in between the cell phone dumps” because he discovered messages exchanged by the Defendant and Mr. Sparkman. Asked if he was referring to the cell phone seized from the Defendant or the one left in the vehicle, he responded, “No, we got it from [hers], too. Got it from [hers,] too. But we — I think we were under the assumption that the phone that was left inside that car came from Leslie Sparkman.” Mr. Sparkman pled guilty to robbery prior to the resolution of the Defendant’s case.

Detective Stoker described the Defendant as a “person of interest” at this point in the investigation. Officer Landen Barber came into contact with the Defendant on December 31, 2015, when he was investigating an unrelated incident at a trailer park and witnessed the Defendant driving a car. Officer Barber was aware that the Defendant’s license had been revoked, and he confirmed this fact through dispatch. He then arrested the Defendant for driving on a revoked license, and pursuant to Detective Stoker’s request, he brought her to the police station so that Detective Stoker could question her about the robbery. The Defendant was informed of her Miranda rights, and she agreed to -2- speak with Detective Stoker. The videotape of the interview reveals that she had the telephone which was the subject of the subsequent search warrants in her possession while she was speaking with Detective Stoker.

During the interview, the Defendant told Detective Stoker that her previous telephone, a laptop computer, and forty-five dollars were stolen from her home a week prior to her arrest. She described the stolen telephone and agreed that a photograph which Detective Stoker showed her resembled her stolen telephone. Detective Stoker revealed that the telephone in the photograph was recovered from the scene of a robbery and assault. When the Defendant again asserted that the telephone had been missing for a week, Detective Stoker informed her that the robbery took place a week before the interview. The Defendant said, “OK. I’m…I’m done.” Detective Stoker repeated, “You’re done?” The Defendant simultaneous said, “You’re yelling at me.” Detective Stoker asserted, “That’s your phone,” and the Defendant agreed, “Yes, that’s my phone.” Both were speaking in raised voices.

Detective Stoker revealed that the victim of the robbery had named the person who arranged the drug transaction as a woman named Kayla, but the Defendant denied having talked to “any girl” about “roxies.” She told Detective Stoker, “The only person I’ve ever sold roxy to that would be a girl, would be a girl named Holly and she’s from Nashville and that was months and months ago and she called me and I didn’t have any months and months ago….” Detective Stoker mentioned that he would check the victim’s telephone for the Defendant’s number, and the Defendant reiterated that her telephone had not been in her possession. She then asked for an attorney, and the interview was immediately concluded. Officer Barber took the Defendant to jail for the offense of driving on a revoked license, and the Defendant’s telephone was seized.

Detective Stoker obtained a search warrant on January 4, 2016, and another detective performed a “dump” of the telephone pursuant to the warrant. The affidavit supporting the search warrant is not entirely intelligible and does not establish a connection between the Defendant, her telephone, and the crime. The search of the Defendant’s telephone, however, revealed that she sold the victim’s laptop through Facebook on the day that it was taken. Detective Stoker testified that he did not have probable cause to arrest the Defendant for the offenses at issue until after he searched the telephone and that the contents of the telephone provided the probable cause for the arrest of the Defendant on January 6, 2016, in connection with the robbery. The trial court found that the affidavit supporting the warrant was defective and granted the motion to suppress the results of the search at a hearing on December 9, 2016, and through a written order filed on January 11, 2017.

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State of Tennessee v. Kayla Marie Anderson, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-of-tennessee-v-kayla-marie-anderson-tenncrimapp-2018.