State of Tennessee v. Richard Anthony Arriola

CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedAugust 26, 2009
DocketM2007-00428-CCA-R3-CD
StatusPublished

This text of State of Tennessee v. Richard Anthony Arriola (State of Tennessee v. Richard Anthony Arriola) 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. Richard Anthony Arriola, (Tenn. Ct. App. 2009).

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT NASHVILLE February 10, 2009 Session

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. RICHARD ANTHONY ARRIOLA

Appeal from the Criminal Court for Davidson County No. 95-D-2835 Monte Watkins, Judge

No. M2007-00428-CCA-R3-CD - Filed August 26, 2009

After conducting a bench trial, the trial court found the Defendant, Richard Anthony Arriola, guilty of one count of first degree murder, one count of attempted first degree murder, and two counts of attempted second degree murder. The trial court sentenced the Defendant to an effective sentence of life imprisonment plus fifteen years. This Court remanded the case to the trial court for an order clarifying its findings on the insanity defense. On appeal, the Defendant claims: (1) the trial court erred when it used an improper legal standard for the insanity defense; and (2) the evidence presented at trial proved by clear and convincing evidence that the Defendant was not guilty by reason of insanity. After a thorough review of the record and the applicable law, we conclude that the trial court applied an improper legal standard for the insanity defense. Therefore, we reverse the convictions and remand for a new trial.

Tenn. R. App. 3 Appeal; Judgment of the Criminal Court Reversed and Remanded

ROBERT W. WEDEMEYER, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which DAVID H. WELLES and THOMAS T. WOODALL, JJ., joined.

Jeffrey DeVasher and Aimee Solway, Nashville, Tennessee (on appeal); Ross Alderman and J. Michael Engle, Nashville, Tennessee (at trial), for the Appellant, Richard Anthony Arriola.

Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter; Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General; James E. Gaylord, Assistant Attorney General; Victor S. Johnson, III, District Attorney General; Roger Moore, Assistant District Attorney General, for the Appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

I. Facts

1 A. Trial

In our remand to the trial court for clarification of its findings on the insanity defense, we summarized the relevant facts:

This case arises from a standoff between the Defendant and the Davidson County Sheriff’s Department on September 22, 1995, which resulted in the death of Officer Jerry Newsome. The Defendant was indicted on charges of one count of first degree murder, one count of attempted first degree murder, and two counts of attempted second degree murder. The Defendant waived his right to a jury trial. At his trial, the relevant evidence included: the Defendant was a well-adjusted and active young man as he completed high school. After enrolling in college at the University of Tennessee-Martin, he began exhibiting symptoms of mental illness. According to his mother, Viola Couser, and his brother, John Arriola, the Defendant became reclusive and paranoid. After completing only one trimester, the Defendant left college and moved back home to Nashville. He then traveled around the world, later claiming to have visited Jerusalem and to have joined a religious group in Florida. When the Defendant would “travel,” he would leave home for months at a time, taking only a “pack on his back” and not tell his family his plans. The Defendant also enlisted in the Navy (and was discharged after three to four months for an unknown reason) and got married for less than a month. When he was in Nashville, he worked at his step-father’s restaurant peeling potatoes. While he was at home, he engaged in peculiar activities like preaching on street corners and on his front porch when no one was near him to listen. He always carried a Bible with him, and he repeatedly tried to baptize his family. The Defendant was even arrested once for preaching outside in the rain.

According to Couser, the Defendant was first hospitalized for mental health treatment in 1987. He remained at Middle Tennessee Mental Health Institute (MTMHI) for thirty days, where the doctors diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia. The Defendant was released with orders to stay on his medicine and continue treatment, but he did neither. The Defendant was hospitalized at MTMHI for another thirty days in 1988, where he was treated again for paranoid schizophrenia. Similar to before, upon release, he refused to take his medication. Around 1989 or 1990, the Defendant moved from the upstairs of his parents’ house into their basement, which he kept “cluttered up,” according to his mother. The Defendant was hospitalized a third time in 1991 at Baptist Hospital as a result of judicial order. The Defendant had gotten into a fist fight with his older brother, John, over the issue of the Defendant not bathing regularly. John agreed to drop the charges if the Defendant entered an inpatient treatment facility. He was kept for thirty days, treated for paranoid schizophrenia, and released. According to Couser, after the Defendant was released, he stopped his treatment; when describing one manifestation of her son’s illness when he stopped his medication, she said, he

2 “wasn’t keeping himself clean. He grew the beard and he wasn’t getting his hair cut.”

In September 1995, the Defendant began posting signs for his “businesses” in his neighborhood. The Defendant thought he ran a scuba diving business, an electrician business, and an advertising business. When the police served his parents with a warrant, ordering that the signs be removed or they pay a fine, the Defendant threatened the police with his neighbor’s dogs. The Defendant’s parents took down his signs to avoid paying a fine, but the Defendant replaced the signs and refused to remove them. The Defendant’s parents both thought if they served the Defendant with an eviction warrant, the judge could commit the Defendant for treatment or, at least, have the Defendant agree to treatment, similar to what happened in 1991.

On September 22, 1995, Officer Johnnie Spears and Officer Jerry Newsome arrived at the Defendant’s house to serve him with the eviction warrant. Officer Spears wore his badge in a visible location, and Officer Newsome wore a green and tan Sheriff’s Department uniform. They knocked on the door with their night sticks, to avoid another threat involving the neighbor’s dogs. The Defendant “came out sideways with his hand behind his back. . . . He was cussing.” Officer Spears said he dropped the warrant on the ground, and as he started to turn, “that’s when [the Defendant] shot me in the mid-section, and it knocked me down.” Officer Spears also saw Officer Newsome “grab his chest and fall.” Officer Spears said the Defendant was originally firing a handgun, but as he made his way back to his police cruiser to call for help, the Defendant began using a camouflaged shotgun. Officer Spears thought Officer Newsome was dead because he never saw him move after falling. Officer Spears made a radio call signaling that a “police officer [was] in serious danger.”

Officer Mike Hagar arrived at the scene after hearing the radio call. He saw Officer Newsome lying in the grass and not moving. After additional police arrived, they realized the Defendant was still in the basement, and they called for the SWAT team. Officer Hagar stated that the Defendant’s brother, John Arriola, came to the scene and warned them that the Defendant was schizophrenic. Officer Hagar said that, while he was at the scene, no shots were fired before the SWAT team went into the house.

When the SWAT team arrived, they divided up into two teams: one for the upstairs portion of the house and one for the basement portion of the house. They initially tried negotiating with the Defendant, but there was no response. After the negotiation failed, the SWAT team began to move into the house. Before the basement team made it into the house, they began “drawing fire” from the Defendant after throwing two “distraction devices” into the house.

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Bluebook (online)
State of Tennessee v. Richard Anthony Arriola, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-of-tennessee-v-richard-anthony-arriola-tenncrimapp-2009.