State of Tennessee v. Michael Love

CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedMarch 13, 2013
DocketW2012-00404-CCA-MR3-CD
StatusPublished

This text of State of Tennessee v. Michael Love (State of Tennessee v. Michael Love) 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. Michael Love, (Tenn. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT JACKSON December 4, 2012 Session

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. MICHAEL LOVE

Appeal from the Criminal Court for Shelby County No. 09-00014 Carolyn Wade Blackett, Judge

No. W2012-00404-CCA-MR3-CD - Filed March 13, 2013

A Shelby County jury convicted the Defendant, Michael Love, of aggravated rape, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, and employing a firearm with intent to commit a felony. The trial court sentenced the Defendant to an effective sentence of twenty-four1 years in the Tennessee Department of Correction. On appeal, the Defendant contends that: (1) the trial court erred when it failed to suppress a photographic lineup of the Defendant, which he asserts was unnecessarily suggestive; and (2) the trial court erred when it enhanced the Defendant’s sentence. After a thorough review of the record and applicable authorities, we affirm the Defendant’s convictions and sentence. Having noticed, however, that there are clerical errors in the judgments of conviction for the aggravated rape, aggravated robbery, and employing a firearm with intent to commit a felony convictions, we remand this case to the trial court for entry of corrected judgments.

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

R OBERT W. W EDEMEYER, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which A LAN E. G LENN and J EFFREY S. B IVINS, JJ., joined.

Michael R. Working, Memphis, Tennessee, for the appellant, Michael Love.

1 The judgements of conviction contain clerical errors, but it is clear from the record that the trial court intended to sentence the Defendant to an effective sentence of twenty-four years. Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter; Jeffrey D. Zentner, Assistant Attorney General; Amy P. Weirich, District Attorney General; and Greg Gilbert and Susanna Shea, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION I. Facts

This case arises from a rape and robbery that occurred on March 7, 2008. In connection with this rape and robbery, a Shelby County grand jury indicted the Defendant on charges of aggravated rape, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, and employing a firearm during the commission of a felony. At the Defendant’s trial on these charges, the parties presented the following evidence:2

The victim, a thirty-year-old female “health care professional,” was at her home located in the Winchester Town Home Village complex on March 7, 2008, with her two children, who were one year old and tens year old. There were two floors to the home, with one bedroom and the kitchen downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs. The victim’s son slept in one of the bedrooms upstairs, and the victim’s infant daughter slept in the other upstairs bedroom with the victim. Several people had keys to her home at the time, including her seventeen-year-old brother, Ramon, her mother, and the father of her daughter. The victim’s brother attended a school close to her house and would sometimes visit after school and/or stay the night with her.

On March 7, 2008, it snowed all day in Memphis. The victim maintained her daily morning routine despite the snow. She, however, left work early at around 2:00 p.m., retrieved her children from her son’s paternal grandmother’s house, and returned home at around 6:30 p.m. The victim cooked dinner, played with her children, and put them to bed at around 9:30 p.m. Her son was in his bedroom, and her daughter was in the room with her before the victim fell asleep without turning off her television.

The victim awoke during the night and, by the light of her television, she saw a black man standing in the hallway, ten feet from her. She called out her brother’s name, and the man did not answer. The victim said that, after she had called her brother’s name multiple times, she turned on her light and put on her glasses at which time she saw the man was not her brother. The man said to her, “I’m not Ramon.” The victim picked up her daughter and asked why the man was in her home. The victim described the man as “slender” and a few inches taller than her height, which she stated as five-foot eleven inches. He wore jeans

2 Because the Defendant does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence, we summarize the facts presented in the light most favorable to the State.

-2- bearing red writing and also two or three jackets over a gray hooded sweater. The victim gave the man her cellular phone and the money she had lying on the table without him asking for either. At trial, the victim identified a cellular phone police had recovered during their investigation as the one that she had given to the man.

After the victim handed the man her cellular phone and money, the man questioned the victim, who was still holding her daughter, about whether she had a boyfriend. The victim said she did not have a boyfriend and asked if the man was talking about her brother, Ramon, and the man said, “No.” The man said he could not believe “they sent him in there,” and the victim asked what he meant by this comment. The man again inquired about whether she had a boyfriend and asked whether he could “get to know [her].” The victim offered the man a piece of paper and asked him to write his number on the paper, so she could call him at a later time. The victim said, at the time, she had no intention of calling the man socially but was trying to be nice to him because she feared for her life. The man offered her his phone number, which she wrote down. The man offered his name as “Low Key.”

The victim said the man continued to talk with her for some time until a second man, whom the victim later identified as the Defendant, came up the steps and stood in her room. She described the Defendant as shorter than the first man, making him about her same height. She said the Defendant was “dark skinned” and wore jeans and a black hooded sweater. The Defendant looked at “Low Key” and said, “[L]et’s dip.” The first man asked the Defendant what was wrong, calling him “cuz,” and the two men walked away. As they were walking away from her, the victim saw a box cutter in the Defendant’s hands.

As soon as the men left her room, the victim used her cordless house phone to dial 911. She said an operator did not answer her call before the first man returned to her room, saying that she was “going to give it up tonight.” The victim implored him not to rape her. The victim said she disconnected her call to 911 and showed the first man the telephone. The first man again told her that she was going to “give it up,” and the victim responded that she had his cellular phone number and that she would call him later. The first man reached in his pocket and showed her a small silver handgun. The victim, who still had her daughter in her arms, asked the first man to at least wear a condom if he was going to “do anything to [her].” He agreed, went into the hallway, and came back in her room and showed her a condom package.

The victim repeatedly asked the first man not to “do this.” The first man pulled down his pants, and the victim began pinching her daughter hoping to make her cry, thinking he would stop if she began crying. The first man again showed the victim his gun. He then raped her. The victim could tell he was wearing a condom, and she was unsure whether he ejaculated. The victim’s daughter remained asleep in the victim’s arms during the rape.

-3- When the first man finished, he left the room. He returned and said “his cousin wanted some.”

The victim said that the Defendant then came into her room and told the victim she was “going to give him some head.” The victim told the second man, “I don’t suck dick.” He told her that she was going to “give [him] some,” and he pushed her down.

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State of Tennessee v. Michael Love, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-of-tennessee-v-michael-love-tenncrimapp-2013.