State v. Galloway

696 S.W.2d 364, 1985 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 3112
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedMay 1, 1985
StatusPublished
Cited by25 cases

This text of 696 S.W.2d 364 (State v. Galloway) 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 v. Galloway, 696 S.W.2d 364, 1985 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 3112 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1985).

Opinion

OPINION

DWYER, Judge.

Appellants appeal as of right from the trial court’s judgment entered on May 29, 1984, after a jury trial. The jury found appellant Lynn Galloway guilty of third-degree burglary, T.C.A. § 39-3-404, petit larceny, T.C.A. § 39-3-1103, and arson, T.C.A. § 39-3-202; appellant Powers guilty of two counts of third-degree burglary, two counts of petit larceny, and two counts of arson; and appellant Alford guilty of two counts of third-degree burglary, two counts of petit larceny, and two counts of arson. The trial court sentenced appellants Galloway and Powers to three (3) years in the State penitentiary on each conviction, and appellant Alford was sentenced to serve five (5) years for each burglary conviction and arson conviction, and two (2) years for each petit larceny conviction. All sentences were ordered to be served concurrently. Appellants assert several issues.

First, we will review the evidence, as appellants challenge its sufficiency. After receiving a telephone call March 17, 1983, at about 11:00 p.m., Robert Taylor immediately went to his business, Taylor’s Saw Shop, located in Gibson County, finding it engulfed in flames. He testified that between $2.00 and $3.00 in pennies were missing from the cash drawer kept in the shop. As he sat in his ear, his headlights illuminated the driver of a car passing by the scene. He recognized appellant Alford as the driver and noticed a stove in the vehicle’s trunk. He got the license number and followed the car. Although he felt that he and appellants had no real problems with one another, he recalled an incident when appellant Alford got mad at him because he (Taylor) would not let him (Alford) drink at the shop. He testified that he suspected Alford set fire to his shop for a number of reasons, including the fact that Alford and another individual had been seen leaving another person’s trailer shortly before the trailer caught fire. He called the police.

State’s witness Cecil Sherlock testified that his house was burned on March 17 or 18, 1983. He related that the house was heated by a wood-burning stove. In court he identified the stove, which police officers located outside appellant Power’s beauty shop. Appellant Galloway told him that he (Galloway) had stayed in the car while Sherlock’s house burned.

*367 Appellant Powers admitted to the police that she had taken two handfuls of pennies from the cash drawer in Taylor’s Saw Shop, which she put in her car. Eighty-one pennies were found by police in the front seat of her car. She also related that after leaving the saw shop, she went to a house where she obtained a stove. It was placed in her trunk and subsequently unloaded at her beauty shop. A police officer testified that he located Sherlock’s stove outside appellant Power’s Beauty Shop on March 18, 1983.

Appellant Alford told police that he had been at the Saw Shop the night it burned and helped carry the stove out of a house, putting it in appellant Power’s car. He related that he was aware of the fires of the saw shop and Sherlock’s house but did not know who set them.

An investigator for the State Fire Marshall’s Office concluded that both fires were caused by arson. This conclusion was based upon the intense heat of the fires, indications that a flammable liquid had been used, the absence of shorts in the saw shop’s fusebox, and the absence of electrical current going to the house. Appellants offered no proof.

After considering the evidence in the light most favorable to the State’s theory, State v. Cabbage, 571 S.W.2d 832, 836 (Tenn.1978), we conclude that any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crimes beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); T.R. A.P. 13(e). This issue is overruled.

Appellants contend that the trial judge erred by refusing to recuse himself. Prior to the jury selection, the court held a hearing on appellant’s motion for recusal filed on the day of trial. At this hearing, Mr. Kelly, appellant Galloway’s attorney, testified about a prior appearance day of the case on March 13, 1984. He was involved in a trial in federal court and sent an attorney in his behalf who apparently did not have the ability to try the case. The trial court expressed his animosity toward the way Mr. Kelly handled the matter, but also explicitly denied any animosity against appellants. The court subsequently assessed jury costs against the attorney for the resetting of this case which will be discussed at the conclusion of this opinion.

The determination of whether to recuse oneself rests within the sound discretion of the trial judge. State ex rel. Phillips v. Henderson, 220 Tenn. 701, 423 S.W.2d 489 (1968). We find no abuse of discretion here. Compare and contrast Leighton v. Henderson, 220 Tenn. 91, 414 S.W. 419 (1967) (judge who expressed himself as to what he would do with case regardless of the proof erred by not recus-ing himself). This issue is overruled.

In the next issue, appellants contend that the trial court erred by failing to suppress testimony by State’s witness Dwight Sherlock regarding a statement made to him by appellant Galloway. After Mr. Sherlock was asked what appellant Galloway had told him about the fire, appellants Powers’ and Alford’s attorney requested a jury-out hearing, which the trial court granted. In the jury-out hearing, witness Sherlock was asked whether appellant Galloway told him where he (Galloway) was when the house burned. Witness Sherlock related that appellant Galloway told him “he (Galloway) stayed in the car.”

Counsel for appellants Powers and Alford objected to the admission of this testimony on the grounds that it violated Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), and that counsel’s discovery motion had been violated. 1 Appellant Galloway’s counsel joined in that part of the objection based on the alleged discovery rule violation. The court overruled the objection and allowed the testimony into evidence.

Now, on appeal, appellant Galloway contends for the first time that the admission of witness Sherlock’s testimony violated his right to counsel under the sixth amendment of the United States Constitution. *368 He argues that witness Sherlock was acting on behalf of the State when he talked to him. He argues that the resulting incriminating statements were deliberately elicited by the action of the State by subverting his right to counsel, and, therefore, were unlawfully admitted at trial. See, e.g., State v. Webb, 625 S.W.2d 281

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Bluebook (online)
696 S.W.2d 364, 1985 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 3112, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-galloway-tenncrimapp-1985.