State v. Harper

753 S.W.2d 360, 1987 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 2603
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedJune 2, 1987
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 753 S.W.2d 360 (State v. Harper) 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. Harper, 753 S.W.2d 360, 1987 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 2603 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1987).

Opinion

OPINION

RICHARD R. FORD, Special Judge.

Jointly charged in a five-count indictment in Case No. 17037,1 the appellants’ first trial of eight days duration ended in a mistrial as to all counts, except the third count which had been voluntarily dismissed. Each of the appellants obtained successor counsel and were again tried. Each was convicted of burglary of an automobile, and each was also convicted of assault with intent to commit second degree murder, a lesser included offense. The appellants, individually and collectively, have presented a total of nine appellate issues. We affirm the judgments as to each appellant.

First, we have considered the appellants’ third issue wherein they challenge the sufficiency of the convicting evidence. A number of well established principles of law apply to this issue. A jury verdict of guilt approved by the trial court accredits the testimony of the State’s witnesses and resolves all conflicts in testimony in favor of the theory of the State. State v. Hatchett, 560 S.W.2d 627, 630 (Tenn.1978). A verdict against a defendant removes the presumption of innocence and raises a presumption of guilt on appeal. State v. Grace, 493 S.W.2d 474 (Tenn.1973). On appeal, the State is entitled to the strongest legitimate inferences which may be drawn therefrom. State v. Cabbage, 571 S.W.2d 832, 835 (Tenn.1978). By procedural rule, a conviction in a criminal action shall be set aside where the reviewing court finds that the evidence is insufficient to support the findings by a trier of fact of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. T.R.A.P. 13(e).

The State’s proof in chief was presented by six witnesses including the two victims. On September 2, 1982, at approximately 3:00 a.m., the victim, James David Comer, a tenant in the Windover Apartment Complex, was asleep in his second floor apartment. He slept with his bedroom windows open. Awakened by a tapping noise in the parking lot, Comer went to the bathroom. A few minutes after turning off his bathroom light, he heard the tapping noise again.

From his balcony Comer, using a twelve volt hunter’s lantern, directed a light beam to the source of the tapping noise. It came from within an automobile, which was later ascertained to be the property of the other victim, Jane Marie Wells. Comer saw two men in the automobile whom he did not know. The automobile was located sixty-six feet from Comer’s balcony. The occupants jumped from the automobile, faced towards Comer, then ran from the lighted area to the darker side of the parking lot.

Comer ran to his telephone, dialed the police emergency number 911, and without waiting for a response, he ran to his car. He drove alongside the Wells’ automobile and observed the windows were fogged over, and that the “o” ring had been knocked off the ignition switch.

Circling around the apartment complex area, Comer drove back into the complex area where he again saw the appellants. As the appellants’ vehicle, an old-type racing car with red primer paint, approached from the opposite direction, Comer forced it to the curb at a “dog-leg” in the driveway.

After stopping the appellants, Comer, who was armed, walked to within two feet [363]*363of Hutchison, the driver. Comer told the appellants, “Boys, you’re caught. Don’t do anything silly. Everything is going to be all right. The police have already been called.” The appellants’ sudden and violent response was described by Comer as follows:

And I looked into the car. I actually put my — I was as far from this microphone to Mr. Hutchison’s face. A little silly probably, but I was that close. At that time when I did that, Mr. Hutchison gunned the car and tried to run over me. At that time I jumped back and rolled across the — my trunk lid, and that’s when the first shot entered my body, my right side. And then I fell behind my car, and I got off one shot at their tire. And I was shot twice more in the abdominal — in the, uh — in the back. Once in the lower back and once in the upper back. And then he drove off.

Comer described the two men to the police, and at trial he identified each of the appellants from his initial encounter with them, as well as from his subsequent confrontation of them.

While in the hospital, Comer was shown two pictorial line-ups. He quickly and positively identified Hutchison’s photograph in one of the pictorial arrays. Subsequently, he made a positive identification of Harper’s photograph included in another pictorial array. Hutchison was arrested in the mobile home of his girlfriend, where the arresting officers seized a bag of burglary tools, including a “slam hammer” or “dent puller.” Harper was arrested soon thereafter.

Jane Marie Wells, the victim of the burglary, had parked and locked her 1980 Oldsmobile Supreme Cutlass in the apartment complex parking lot at 9:00 p.m., August 31,1982. About 4:45 p.m., on September 1st, she discovered it had been broken and entered. She found a screw driver and a broken screw in the driver’s seat. The “butter-fly” end of the ignition switch had been knocked off the steering column and was also found on the driver’s seat.

Ms. Wells called the police. It was established that Comer, the shooting victim, had seen the appellants in the Wells vehicle at the time he had investigated the tapping noise. Without repeating the evidence given by the officers who investigated the separate complaints of the victims, it is sufficient for our purpose to note that such evidence is consistent with the testimony given by each of the two victims. Additionally, there was other evidence consistent with the State’s theory of the case.

There was more than ample evidence from which any rational trier of fact would conclude that the appellants are guilty of burglary of an automobile as charged in the first count, and guilty of assault with intent to commit second degree murder, a lesser included offense, as charged in the fifth count, beyond a reasonable doubt. See Rule 13(e), T.R.A.P., supra; Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). There is no merit to the appellants’ challenge to the sufficiency of the convicting evidence.

Additionally, we note that as to the appellant Harper, he had entered a motion for a judgment of acquittal, but chose not to rely on it by proceeding with his alibi defense. Harper effectively waived his challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence by his election to introduce evidence in his own behalf. See Mathis v. State, 590 S.W.2d 449, 453 (Tenn.1979).

For the first appellate issue, the appellant Hutchison contends that his motion to suppress his statements made during a jail-telephone conversation was erroneously refused. After our examination of the evidence adduced at the hearing, we agree with the ruling of the trial court.

Following his arrest, Hutchinson was permitted to make a telephone call from the booking room of the jail. The jail telephone was equipped with a continuous taping devise and a beeper.

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Related

Leonard Hutchison and James Harper v. State of Tennessee
Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 2003
Hutchison v. State
Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1997
State v. Keel
882 S.W.2d 410 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1994)
State v. Hodgkinson
778 S.W.2d 54 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1989)

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Bluebook (online)
753 S.W.2d 360, 1987 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 2603, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-harper-tenncrimapp-1987.