State of Tennessee v. Matthew Anthony Perry

CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedJune 11, 2021
DocketE2020-00911-CCA-R3-CD
StatusPublished

This text of State of Tennessee v. Matthew Anthony Perry (State of Tennessee v. Matthew Anthony Perry) 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. Matthew Anthony Perry, (Tenn. Ct. App. 2021).

Opinion

06/11/2021 IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT KNOXVILLE May 26, 2021 Session

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. MATHEW ANTHONY PERRY

Appeal from the Criminal Court for Johnson County No. 2018-CR-28 Lisa Rice, Judge ___________________________________

No. E2020-00911-CCA-R3-CD ___________________________________

A Johnson County jury convicted the defendant, Mathew Anthony Perry, of unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and the trial court imposed a sentence of fifteen years’ confinement. On appeal, the defendant argues the trial court erred in sentencing him as a Range II offender, asserting the State’s notice of enhanced punishment was deficient. The defendant also argues the trial court erred in failing to grant a mistrial based upon alleged improper testimony. After reviewing the record and considering the applicable law, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. However, we remand the matter for the sole purpose of ensuring that judgment forms were entered for each count of the indictment.

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

J. ROSS DYER, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which ROBERT W. WEDEMEYER and CAMILLE R. MCMULLEN, JJ., joined.

Perry L. Stout, Mountain City, Tennessee, for the appellant, Mathew Anthony Perry.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Edwin Alan Groves, Jr., Assistant Attorney General; Ken C. Baldwin, District Attorney General; and Leon Marshall, Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

Facts and Procedural History

On December 28, 2017, the defendant, Mathew Anthony Perry, and Brittany Arnold approached the home of Charlena and Christopher Johnson and exchanged gunfire with Mr. Johnson. As a result, a Johnson County grand jury indicted the defendant with unlawful possession of a weapon by a convicted felon (count 1), five counts of felony reckless endangerment (counts 2 through 6), and attempted theft of property between $1000 and $10,000 (count 7).1 Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 39-13-103; -14-103; -17-1307. Prior to trial, the State filed a “Notice of Intent to Enhance/Impeach” which listed fourteen prior felony convictions. The State presented the following evidence during trial.

Around 2:30 a.m. on December 28, 2017, Ms. Johnson woke to help her daughter who was sick. While awake, Ms. Johnson stepped outside on the front porch and saw a truck pull into a parking area “across the road” from her home. She described the truck as “a full-size truck with the lights across the top” and noted the truck was loud. The truck parked behind a tractor and a trailer, and Ms. Johnson “heard them cut the engine off, and [she] heard two doors shut.” Ms. Johnson then saw a man and a woman walking up her driveway. She alerted Mr. Johnson and gathered her three daughters in the living room.

Mr. Johnson went outside, and Ms. Johnson soon heard “hollering” followed by three to four gunshots. Ms. Johnson did not see who fired the initial shot but stated she believed the shots were fired from different guns “[b]ecause one shot was louder than the other shots.” Mr. Johnson ran back inside and stated, “They’re shooting at me.” He was scared, frantic, and “trying to figure out what to do.” Ms. Johnson called the police, and Mr. Johnson went back outside. After the shooting ended, Ms. Johnson went outside and saw the truck “pulling out from behind the trailer on the other side of the road where [she] had seen it pull in at.” Ms. Johnson provided police with a description of the truck and indicated it drove towards Mountain City.

Mr. Johnson provided similar testimony, stating when Ms. Johnson alerted him to two people walking up his driveway, he “grabbed [his] pistol” and went out on the front porch “to see what was going on.” He saw a man and a woman “scrambling around in [his] driveway. They were cussing and trying to go back down the road.” Mr. Johnson “stuck [his] pistol up in the air and shot,” and then “saw the flash of somebody shooting back at [him] from down the road.” Mr. Johnson stated he “immediately turned to the gunfire and commenced firing back.” In total, he fired five additional shots after the initial warning shot, and the man and woman fired at least three or four shots. During the gunfire, Mr. Johnson was worried that his children might be killed and felt a duty to protect them. Mr. Johnson ran back inside the house to get another rifle and saw the truck “getting ready to pull out.” The truck drove towards Mountain City, and Mr. Johnson described the truck as being a “dark color,” loud, and with “lights on the top of it.”

The following day, Mr. Johnson examined his front porch and noticed that “one of the bullets had nicked the post.” Mr. Johnson took a picture of the area of the post “where the bullet had struck beside of me.” The picture was entered into evidence. Mr. Johnson

1 The attempted theft charge of count 7 was dismissed prior to trial. -2- did not find any additional bullets or notice any other damage to his home. Additional pictures of the Johnsons’ home were entered into evidence which showed: the area the man and woman “parked their truck and hid it,” several angles of the Johnsons’ home and driveway, the surrounding roads, and “the RZR or side-by-side that [the defendant and Ms. Arnold] was (sic) supposedly coming to take.” Mr. Johnson provided a statement to police on the night of the incident and reviewed the statement during trial. He did not recall the police suggesting that his warning shot was a bad idea and stated the man and woman were trespassing on his property.

While on duty on December 28, 2017, Deputy Jeffrey Norman of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office2 received a “shots fired” call and a description of the truck involved in the shooting. He described the vehicle as a large truck that “had a loud exhaust and there was a light bar on the top of the vehicle.” While en route to the Johnsons’ home, Deputy Norman and Deputy Lipford encountered the suspect vehicle and conducted a felony traffic stop. The deputies “pulled both individuals out at gun point,” identified and secured the individuals, and then spoke with them separately. Deputy Norman identified the defendant as the driver of the truck and Brittany Arnold as the passenger and noted he knew Ms. Arnold from prior experiences in law enforcement and “also through a relative.”

The deputies placed Ms. Arnold in Deputy Norman’s patrol vehicle while Deputy Lipford questioned the defendant. Deputy Norman overheard the defendant state that there was a firearm in the truck and Ms. Arnold described the firearm as a purple handgun. Deputy Lipford then removed the firearm from the glove compartment and rendered the gun safe. Deputy Norman stated the gun was not loaded, but the deputies also found a magazine in the glove compartment. They did not find any bullets in the vehicle. Deputy Norman identified the firearm for the jury and described it as a 9-millimeter SCCY handgun. After conducting an inventory search of the truck, the deputies had the truck towed and completed a Vehicle Tow-In Report which was entered into evidence. The report listed the defendant as the truck’s registered owner.

Chief Deputy Joe Woodard of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office3 responded to the scene around 3:55 a.m. Because it was dark, officers did not complete a search until later that day, and Mr. Johnson participated in the search by using a metal detector to locate shell casings. Ultimately, two shell casings were found near Poplar Ridge Road approximately 211 to 230 feet from the damaged post on the Johnsons’ front porch. Deputy Woodard photographed the shell casings and the surrounding area, and the photographs

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State v. Hester
324 S.W.3d 1 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 2010)
State v. Benham
113 S.W.3d 702 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 2003)
State v. Johnson
970 S.W.2d 500 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1996)
State v. Troutman
979 S.W.2d 271 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1998)
State v. Adams
788 S.W.2d 557 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1990)
State of Tennessee v. Rhakim Martin
505 S.W.3d 492 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 2016)
State v. Berry
503 S.W.3d 360 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 2015)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
State of Tennessee v. Matthew Anthony Perry, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-of-tennessee-v-matthew-anthony-perry-tenncrimapp-2021.