State of Tennessee v. Mario Norfleet and Terence Mitchell

CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedNovember 23, 2015
DocketW2014-00780-CCA-R3-CD
StatusPublished

This text of State of Tennessee v. Mario Norfleet and Terence Mitchell (State of Tennessee v. Mario Norfleet and Terence Mitchell) 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. Mario Norfleet and Terence Mitchell, (Tenn. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT JACKSON June 2, 2015 Session

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. MARIO NORFLEET and TERENCE MITCHELL

Appeal from the Criminal Court for Shelby County No. 11-06148 Chris Craft, Judge

No. W2014-00780-CCA-R3-CD - Filed November 23, 2015 _____________________________

A Shelby County jury convicted Mario Norfleet and Terence Mitchell of theft of property valued at more than $60,000. The trial court sentenced Defendant Norfleet, as a career offender, to serve thirty years in the Tennessee Department of Correction. The trial court sentenced Defendant Mitchell, as a standard offender, to eight years suspended to ten years of probation after the service of ten months and twelve days in jail. On appeal, Defendant Norfleet asserts that: (1) the State made improper statements during closing argument to the jury; (2) there is a variance between the indictment and the evidence presented at trial; (3) the trial court failed to properly instruct the jury on the lesser- included offense of attempted theft; and (4) the trial court improperly sentenced Defendant Norfleet as a career offender. Defendant Mitchell also challenges the prosecutor‟s statements made during closing argument as improper, but additionally asserts that: (1) the evidence is insufficient to sustain his conviction; (2) the trial court improperly admitted testimony from a witness that referenced his gang affiliation; (3) the trial court improperly ordered restitution; and (3) the cumulative effect of these errors deprived him of a fair trial. After a thorough review of the record and applicable law, we affirm the trial court‟s judgments but remand for the entry of a corrected judgment pertaining to Defendant Mitchell‟s order of restitution.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgments of the Criminal Court Affirmed and Remanded for a Corrected Judgment

ROBERT W. WEDEMEYER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which D. KELLY THOMAS, JR. and ROBERT L. HOLLOWAY, JR., JJ., joined.

Claiborne H. Ferguson, Memphis, Tennessee, for the appellant, Mario Norfleet.

Lance R. Chism (on appeal) and Charles Waldman (at trial), Memphis, Tennessee for the appellant, Terence Mitchell. Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Rachel Willis, Senior Counsel; Amy P. Weirich, District Attorney General; and Byron Winsett, Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

This case arises from the theft of furniture from a warehouse where items were stored for Fox Lane Furniture in Memphis, Tennessee. A Shelby County grand jury indicted the defendants for theft of property valued at more than $60,000.1 At the trial for these charges, the parties presented the following evidence: Robert Landshof, the sole proprietor of Fox Lane Furniture, testified that he started his furniture business in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1970. He explained that he operated a 15,000 square foot showroom located on Winchester Road and a warehouse located on Barton Drive. Mr. Landshof had owned the three-story warehouse since 1997 and said he stored “[m]illions of dollars‟ worth” of furniture inventory in the warehouse.

Mr. Landshof testified that, during the time period of September 2010 to January 2011, he experienced “considerable loss” to his inventory due to multiple “break-ins” of his warehouse. About these break-ins, Mr. Landshof stated:

The first incident was noticed in the first part of September of 2010. The front door lock to the warehouse has a steel cover plate that sort of covers the area where the deadbolt goes into the frame. And that steel cover plate was chiseled off allowing someone to pry the deadbolt back and gain access to the building.

....

We called the police immediately . . . and had them come out and you know, the documentation was started at that date, the problem was, we repaired that lock, we reinforced that lock, and over the next five months, every door - - there‟s like six different doors to the building, every single door was smashed, broken, chopped, whatever manner, I couldn‟t stop it.

Mr. Landshof stated that he placed additional locks to the doors and added cables and chains, both of which were “easily cut.” “Out of desperation” he attempted to cement a

1 Co-defendants Lavell Mitchell, Ronald Evans, and Deven Shives were also indicted for this offense but are not participants in this appeal.

2 rear door that went into the basement of the building but ultimately just “reinforced” the doors. Mr. Landshof sat in his pickup truck some nights and watched the warehouse in an attempt to figure out how “massive amounts of furniture” was being removed from his warehouse.

Mr. Landshof testified that, although it was not initially apparent, he finally determined that the intruders had removed a sheet of metal covering the rear windows on the building and “chopped” a hole through one of the windows, providing a small opening into the basement. After entry, the intruders would replace the sheet metal to obscure detection. Once someone was inside the building, the bar on an exit door could be pushed to get out of the building. Mr. Landshof testified that the total value of the furniture taken during the numerous break-ins was “in excess of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.” He described the warehouse as “in a shambles” with items ripped out of the boxes, items smashed, and items broken. He recalled that he found a section of the warehouse that “might hold thirty beds” with all the boxes intact but empty.

Mr. Landshof testified that, in mid-January 2011, at the request of a Memphis Police detective, he drove to a residence on Whittaker Drive in Memphis, Tennessee. Upon entering the residence, Mr. Landshof found that “it was very obvious” that it was his inventory in the residence. Mr. Landshof recalled that the residents of the home were present and that he did not know any of them nor had he given any of them permission to take the furniture to the residence on Whittaker Drive. Mr. Landshof said that the two- story house and garage were full of the stolen furniture and there were stolen items in the backyard. He said that he found it “most disconcerting” to see the furniture outside because the winter weather and elements were destroying the furniture. Mr. Landshof identified photographs taken of the stolen furniture at the Whittaker Drive residence. About his identification of the items found at the Whittaker Drive residence, Mr. Landshof explained that some of the furniture he had imported from China and were items “no one else would have had.” He further explained that the items that were still boxed had labels addressed to “Robert Landshof.” Mr. Landshof stated that the condition in which he found the furniture was such that he could no longer sell it.

Mr. Landshof testified that he saw a truck with a trailer sitting in front of the Whittaker Drive residence. The bed of the pickup truck was filled with empty furniture cartons and packing material. He also observed empty boxes on the trailer. Mr. Landshof identified the list he made while at the Whittaker Drive residence of each of the furniture items recovered at the residence. On the inventory pages, he listed the market value of each of the items before the items were stolen and damaged, with a total value of $76,913 for the items recovered from the Whittaker Drive residence. As to the amount of the furniture found at the Whittaker Drive residence, Mr. Landshof estimated that the items would have fit into a “twenty-six foot bob truck.” He said that, at the time, he had 3 only a twenty-foot trailer, so it took multiple trips over the course of five to six hours for Mr. Landshof to load all of the items at the Whittaker Drive residence and return the items to his warehouse. Mr.

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State of Tennessee v. Mario Norfleet and Terence Mitchell, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-of-tennessee-v-mario-norfleet-and-terence-mitchell-tenncrimapp-2015.