State v. Hartman

703 S.W.2d 106, 1985 Tenn. LEXIS 616
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 28, 1985
StatusPublished
Cited by65 cases

This text of 703 S.W.2d 106 (State v. Hartman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Hartman, 703 S.W.2d 106, 1985 Tenn. LEXIS 616 (Tenn. 1985).

Opinions

OPINION

FONES, Justice.

This is a direct appeal of a death penalty case. Defendant was convicted of first degree murder in the perpetration of kidnapping, and sentenced to death upon the jury’s finding of three aggravating circumstances, to-wit: the murder was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel; it was committed while defendant was engaged in kidnapping; and it was committed while the defendant was in lawful custody, etc.1

I.

The victim was Kathy Nishiyama, age sixteen, who lived with her parents on Charlemagne Street, near its intersection with Highway 41A in Clarksville, Tennes[109]*109see.2 She disappeared on November 16, 1981, en route from David Lin’s home to her home, a drive of approximately thirty minutes. Kathy and David had been dating for more than six months, and had planned to marry when they graduated from high school. She left the Lin residence about eight thirty p.m. David telephoned the Nishiyama residence about nine thirty p.m., and after two subsequent calls to learn whether or not she had arrived, he left his residence and began to search for her.

He found her 1978 Mustang about eleven p.m. in the parking lot of the Church of God on Lafayette Street, near its intersection with Highway 41A. The car was locked, covered with dew, and the muffler and engine were cold. Her disappearance remained a mystery, despite massive searches, until March the first, 1982.

Near the end of February 1982, James Spicer, a thirty year veteran with the Tennessee Highway Department, had a crew cleaning up litter along Highway 49 between Charlotte and Erin. He found Kathy’s purse down an embankment too steep to mow, about thirty feet beyond the guard rail along the northerly side of Highway 49 in Houston County. A few days later, the residents of a trailer home near Highway 49, in a sparsely settled area, a few miles toward Erin from the place Kathy’s purse was found, called the Houston County Sheriff’s Department and asked that they investigate something they had found in their yard. It was a human skull, identified by Dr. Marvin Bass, Chairman of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, and the forensic anthropologist for the State of Tennessee, as that of Kathy Nishiyama. The area was searched and her upper jaw bones and upper teeth were found, and from her dental chart and an x-ray of Kathy’s skull, Dr. Bass was able to make a positive identification that such of the skeletal remains as were found were those of Kathy Nishiya-ma. Her bones and hair and clothes were scattered over a wide area of remote woods, but near an old road used to haul timber many years ago. Many of her bones exhibited evidence of dog tooth marks, according to Dr. Bass. He testified that the skull had been fractured by four separate blows and identified a blow over her right ear that caused a fracture that extended into the back of her skull, as the cause of death.

Most of Kathy’s clothes and two-thirds of a tooth that Dr. Bass opined was knocked out by one of the four blows to Kathy’s head were found near two trees that had markings in the bark, near the face of each. The Sheriff of Houston County, who was also an experienced tim-bercutter and woodsman, identified the two trees, standing approximately eight feet apart. On cross examination, the sheriff said the markings in the bark of the two trees could have been caused by someone being tied between the two trees, and that the markings were made after the growing season of 1981 had ended, and were four to six months or less in age.

Defendant Hartman, although convicted of an offense calling for time in the State Penitentiary, was serving that sentence in the Dickson County Jail, at Charlotte, where he had the status of trusty. He worked on patrol cars assigned to the sheriff’s office and there was evidence that he performed other work for the sheriff and Deputy Carroll Fizer. It was shown that Deputy Fizer used Dickson County Sheriff's patrol car number five most of the time; that it was a 1978 Plymouth, white with green stripes, gold stars on the front doors, a heavy wire screen between the front seat and the back seat; that the rear doors could not be opened, nor the rear windows rolled down from the inside; that it had a full blue light bar across the roof. The evidence also revealed that the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office had no Plymouths at that time; that all of its [110]*110patrol cars were Chevrolet Malibu’s, although they were also white with some green trim, similar to all county patrol cars in the State of Tennessee.

On November 16, 1981, at approximately 6:00 P.M., Deputy Fizer, apparently with the knowledge of Sheriff Doyle Wall, turned over custody of car number five to defendant at a tobacco barn near Fizer’s residence, with instructions to return to the Dickson County Jail at Charlotte. Defendant did not arrive at the jail in Charlotte until 3:30 a.m., or later, on November 17, 1981.

Richard Owen Hughes lives on Jarmon Hollow Road in Palmyra. On November 16, 1981, he left work at the coca-cola company at 6:00 p.m. and was on his way home on Highway 49, when he passed a patrol car that later followed him for about four miles. After he turned onto Jarmon Hollow Road, the patrol car turned on its blue lights, and Hughes pulled over, stopped, got out of his car and walked back to the patrol car. The driver of the patrol car first asked to see his license, then said he did not need to see it, and that he needed directions to get back to Dickson County.

Terry Taylor crossed the Cumberland River at Cumberland City about 6:00 p.m. on November 16, 1981. He drove to Palmyra on Highway 149, stopped at a friend’s house for twenty to twenty-five minutes. He then headed toward Clarks-ville on Highway 149. About six miles from Clarksville he observed the headlights of a vehicle overtaking him rapidly, and after they crossed the ridge, blue lights were turned on, and he pulled off the road. After waiting several minutes he got out of his jeep and walked back to the patrol car with his driver’s license in his hand. The driver of the patrol car saw his driver’s license, but told Taylor that was not the reason he stopped him; that he was from Dickson County, was on a “big drug bust,” and had gotten lost and wanted to know how to get back to Dickson County. Taylor instructed him where to turn to get on Highway 13, and then Highway 48 to Dickson County. Both proceeded towards Clarksville on Highway 149, but Taylor saw a friend in a yard along the way and stopped to chat for five or six minutes. When Taylor reached the Hilltop Market he saw the patrol car sitting at the edge of the parking lot. He pulled in behind him and the driver got out and asked if they were at the intersection where he should turn. Taylor responded that it was the next intersection where he should take a right turn.

At trial, Taylor positively identified the driver of the patrol car that stopped him and that he conversed with at the Hilltop Market as defendant Hartman, and identified the patrol car as a white Plymouth with green stripes. He testified that the driver was not wearing the uniform of a police officer, that his shirt and pants were army-type work clothes; that the driver said he was late and had to hurry back to Dickson County; that it was after seven p.m. when defendant drove away from the Hilltop Market towards Clarksville and Highway 13.

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Bluebook (online)
703 S.W.2d 106, 1985 Tenn. LEXIS 616, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-hartman-tenn-1985.