State v. McMiller

614 S.W.2d 398, 1981 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 329
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedJanuary 8, 1981
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 614 S.W.2d 398 (State v. McMiller) 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. McMiller, 614 S.W.2d 398, 1981 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 329 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1981).

Opinion

OPINION

SCOTT, Judge.

The appellant was convicted of aggravated rape and received a sentence of twenty-five years in the state penitentiary. He was also convicted of attempt to commit a felony and sentenced to not less than one nor more than two years in the state penitentiary. Finding him to be an habitual criminal, the jury enhanced the punishment for the aggravated rape conviction to life imprisonment. The attempt to commit a felony sentence was ordered to be served concurrently with the life sentence. Aggrieved by these actions, the appellant has presented seven issues for our review.

The first two issues, taken together, constitute the standard issue, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence.

In the early morning hours of August 10, 1979, the victim returned from an evening of night clubbing to her apartment in the Cloud Apartments complex in Kings-port. She went directly to bed and was soon asleep. Later, she was awakened by the movement of the cover on her bed. She saw a black man stooped over her bed. Street lights outside her bedroom window provided illumination and she saw his face. He instructed her to turn away from him and he subsequently tied one of her flannel nightgowns around her face. The man was armed with a shiny, sharp-bladed object which the victim believed to be a knife.

The man instructed her to remove her nightgown and he then removed her panties. He penetrated her from three different positions. As he did so, he stuck the sharp blade of the object against her shoulder. Eventually, he climaxed and got up from the bed. The man then got a wet washcloth and made the victim wash her genitals.

[400]*400After instructing the victim not to call the police but to remain in her bed under a threat that he would kill her if she did not comply, the man left. She remained in the bed and lay very still. Shortly he returned to the bedroom to determine if she was following his instructions. He told her, “if I hear one word about rape in these apartments tomorrow, I’ll know where it came from”. He further told her that if she reported the matter that she would be killed.

The man departed again and the victim again lay very still for an extended period of time. When she heard movement in her next door neighbor’s apartment, she went out onto the porch and talked with the neighbor. She did not tell the neighbor about the incident, since, according to the victim, she was afraid to do so.

After daybreak, she walked to her sister’s apartment located in the same complex, where she told her sister and her brother-in-law about the incident. In spite of the statements about her fear of retaliation, the brother-in-law called the police.

Officers responded and carried the victim to a hospital where a doctor performed a pelvic examination. The examination revealed the presence of sperm inside and outside the vagina. An acid phosphatase test revealed that the victim had recently had sexual intercourse.

The police showed the victim an album of black and white mugshots of black men. The appellant’s photograph was not in the album and she did not identify anyone. Three days later the victim looked through an album of color photographs of black men. Two photographs of the appellant were included therein, one with a beard and one without. The victim identified both photographs as being accurate representations of the man who raped her. She also made an unequivocal, in-court identification of the appellant.

The appellant lived with his girlfriend, Sarah Ann Ford, in the same apartment complex. Ms. Ford was an employee of the Kingsport Housing Authority in the maintenance department. She had a master key to all of the apartments in the complex.

The appellant was also placed on the scene at about the time of the rape by Howard Lark, Jr., another resident of Cloud Apartments. Mr. Lark became restless and could not sleep, so he went outside at approximately 3:00 or 4:00 A.M. He ran into the appellant and together they smoked a joint of marijuana and chatted. The appellant identified himself as “Skeets” McMil-ler’s brother and told Mr. Lark that his nickname was “Rusty”. Mr. Lark described the appellant’s dress as a black, short-sleeved, football jersey with white stripes around the shoulders and numbers on the front and back. He wore cut offs and was barefoot. The victim had also stated that her assailant was wearing a black football jersey with white numerals. Neither Mr. Lark nor the victim could identify precisely the numbers on the jersey.

The appellant admitted his presence in the apartment complex during those early morning hours. He contended that he had been out to a club earlier in the evening and that he and Ms. Ford had been to someone else’s apartment to watch a movie on T.V. They returned to her apartment and continued to watch television until 3:00 or 3:15 A.M. He then went outside where he met Mr. Lark. He admitted that they smoked a joint together, that he told him he was Skeets’ brother, and that he told him that his nickname was “Rusty”. However, he denied the rape, denied ownership of a black football jersey, and denied ever having touched his girlfriend’s master key to the apartment complex.

Based on this controverted proof, the jury found the appellant guilty. The rules for appellate review of jury verdicts have been so frequently stated that they hardly require restatement. A guilty verdict by a jury, approved by the trial judge, accredits the testimony of the witnesses for the state. The trial judge and jury are the primary instrumentalities of justice to determine the weight and credibility to be given to the testimony of witnesses. No appellate court is free to reevaluate the evidence as it pleases. Upon appeal the state is entitled [401]*401to the strongest legitimate view of the trial evidence and all reasonable or legitimate inferences which may be drawn therefrom. State v. Cabbage, 571 S.W.2d 832, 835 (Tenn.1978).

Considering this case in light of these firmly established principles, we find that there was ample evidence from which a rational trier of fact could determine that the appellant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Rule 13(e), T.R.App.P., Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 312-324, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2786-2792, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). These issues have no merit.

In the next two issues the appellant contends that the court erred in not granting a mistrial when the Attorney General advised the jury in his voir dire examination that the appellant did not have to testify, and also contends that the court erred in refusing to grant a mistrial when a witness identified the book of photographs as being pictures of persons who had been convicted of crimes. Actually, the witness testified that this was a book of photographs of people “arrested” for crimes not “convicted”.

While these issues are presented, the appellant presented no authority from this jurisdiction or any other and presented no argument in regard to either. Therefore, both issues were'waived and we hold them to be without merit. Rockett v. State, 475 S.W.2d 561, 563 (Tenn.Cr.App.1971).

In the next issue the appellant contends that the photographic show-up was tainted and unduly suggestive because the appellant’s photograph appeared twice therein.

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Related

State v. Clyde Edgeston
Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1997
State v. Boyd
867 S.W.2d 330 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1993)
State v. Matthews
805 S.W.2d 776 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1990)
State v. Sammons
656 S.W.2d 862 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, 1982)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
614 S.W.2d 398, 1981 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 329, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-mcmiller-tenncrimapp-1981.