State of Tennessee v. Ramey Michelle Long

CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedJune 29, 2018
DocketW2016-02471-CCA-R3-CD
StatusPublished

This text of State of Tennessee v. Ramey Michelle Long (State of Tennessee v. Ramey Michelle Long) 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. Ramey Michelle Long, (Tenn. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

06/29/2018 IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT JACKSON October 3, 2017 Session

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. RAMEY MICHELLE LONG

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Henderson County No. 16-095-2 Donald H. Allen, Judge ___________________________________

No. W2016-02471-CCA-R3-CD ___________________________________

The Appellant, Ramey Michelle Long, was convicted by a jury of the Class A misdemeanors driving under the influence (DUI); DUI, second offense; possession of marijuana; and possession of drug paraphernalia. The Appellant was also convicted of the Class C misdemeanors speeding and violating the open container law. The trial court merged the DUI convictions and imposed a sentence of eleven months and twenty-nine days for each Class A misdemeanor and thirty days for each Class C misdemeanor. The court ordered the sentence for the DUI conviction to be served consecutively to the remaining sentences, which were to be served concurrently. The trial court further approved of the fines imposed by the jury, which were the maximum allowable for each offense, for a total of $8,600. On appeal, the Appellant contends that (1) the evidence was insufficient to sustain her conviction of DUI, second offense; (2) the trial court erred by denying her motions to suppress; (3) the trial court erred by preventing her from introducing her pharmaceutical records, medical records, hardware taken from her back during surgery, and a hand-drawn chart concerning the therapeutic levels of her medication; (4) the trial court erred by admitting still photographs taken from a video; (5) the trial court failed to dismiss the speeding charge because it was not included in the indictment; (6) the trial court erred in sentencing; and (7) the trial court erred in revoking her bond pending appeal. Upon review, we conclude that the trial court erred by imposing a thirty-day sentence for violating the open container law; accordingly, the case must be remanded for correction of the judgment of conviction to reflect that the punishment is a $50 fine. Further, on remand the judgment of conviction for speeding must be vacated and dismissed. We affirm the trial court’s judgments in all other respects.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgments of the Circuit Court Affirmed in Part; Vacated in Part; Case Remanded NORMA MCGEE OGLE, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which THOMAS T. WOODALL, P.J., and JOHN EVERETT WILLIAMS, J., joined.

Michael S. Long, Memphis, Tennessee, for the Appellant, Ramey Michelle Long.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Jeffrey D. Zentner, Assistant Attorney General; James G. Woodall, District Attorney General; and Christopher W. Post, Assistant District Attorney General, for the Appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

I. Procedural and Factual Background

A. Procedural History

As a result of a traffic stop effectuated by two Henderson County sheriff’s deputies, the Appellant was indicted for DUI; DUI, second offense; possession of marijuana; possession of drug paraphernalia; and violating the open container law. The true bill reflects the Appellant also was indicted for speeding; however, the indictment did not include a charge of speeding. Nevertheless, at trial, the jury was instructed on speeding and convicted the Appellant of that offense.

The Appellant filed a pretrial motion to suppress evidence adduced as a result of the traffic stop. After a hearing, the motion was denied. Subsequently, a trial was held; however, the Appellant chose not to hire a court reporter, and on December 19, 2016, she filed a statement of the evidence that purported to be an accurate account of what transpired during trial. See Tenn. R. App. P. 24(c), (e). On December 22, 2016, the State filed a written objection to the Appellant’s statement of the evidence, contending that the Appellant’s facts were “substantially different than what the State recall[ed],” that “numerous matters [were] improperly included” in the Appellant’s facts, that “numerous matters [were] improperly misstated” in the Appellant’s facts, and that “numerous essential matters that [were] properly includable, [were] omitted” from the Appellant’s facts.

On March 6, 2017, before the trial court ruled upon the objection, the Appellant filed her appellate brief, which contained citations to the statement of the evidence she had submitted. The State filed a motion in this court, seeking a remand to the trial court for a “settlement of the statement of the evidence.” On May 3, 2017, this court granted the motion, and the case was remanded to the trial court. On May 16, 2017, the State filed its proposed statement of the evidence, and on May 25, 2017, the Appellant filed a response challenging the State’s statement of the evidence. On July 5, 2017, the trial

-2- court filed an order in which it adopted the State’s statement of the evidence as “true and correct” and ruled that the Appellant’s statement of the evidence was “denied.”

The Appellant filed a reply brief disputing the facts included in the statement of the evidence. However, Tennessee Rule of Appellate Procedure 24(e) provides that “[a]ny differences regarding whether the record accurately discloses what occurred in the trial court shall be submitted to and settled by the trial court regardless of whether the record has been transmitted to the appellate court. Absent extraordinary circumstances, the determination of the trial court is conclusive.” See State v. Tommy Pleas Arwood, Jr., No. M2003-01125-CCA-R3-CD, 2007 WL 1890100, at *7 (Tenn. Crim. App. at Nashville, June 28, 2007). The Appellant has not alleged the existence of any extraordinary circumstances that warrant disturbing the determination of the trial court; accordingly, we conclude that the trial court’s ruling is conclusive and that the statement of the evidence approved by the trial court is controlling. See State v. Madden, 99 S.W.3d 127, 141 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2002).

B. Statement of the Evidence

Based upon the statement of the evidence, Deputy Terry Moody1 testified that he had been employed by the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office for seven years and that he had been trained in detecting if a person was driving under the influence and in conducting standardized field sobriety tests.

At approximately 10:30 p.m. on August 18, 2015, Deputy Moody was training Deputy Daniel Martin, and they were running stationary radar on Interstate 40 in Henderson County. They “clocked” the Appellant driving 84 miles-per-hour (mph) in a 70 mph zone. The deputies pursued the Appellant in their vehicle and signaled for her to stop. The Appellant parked on the shoulder of the interstate. The deputies exited their vehicle, approached the front passenger’s side of the Appellant’s vehicle, and asked her to roll down her window. When the window was lowered, Deputy Moody “immediately noticed the smell of burn[ed] marijuana coming from inside” the Appellant’s vehicle. Deputy Moody asserted that he knew the difference between the odor of marijuana that had not been smoked and marijuana that had been smoked. He asked the Appellant for her driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance. She “seemed sleepy and confused,” stopped looking for the documents during the search, and had to be reminded to continue looking for the documents. Deputy Moody asked for the Appellant’s point of origin and destination, and she responded that she was driving from Nashville to Memphis.

1 The statement of the evidence did not contain the deputies’ first names. However, at the suppression hearing, which was transcribed by a court reporter, the deputies testified regarding their first names. We have included them here for completeness.

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Bluebook (online)
State of Tennessee v. Ramey Michelle Long, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-of-tennessee-v-ramey-michelle-long-tenncrimapp-2018.