State v. Reed

689 S.W.2d 190, 1984 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 2678
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedNovember 29, 1984
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 689 S.W.2d 190 (State v. Reed) 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. Reed, 689 S.W.2d 190, 1984 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 2678 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

OPINION

DUNCAN, Judge.

The defendant, Reginald Reed, was found guilty of aggravated rape and armed robbery and was sentenced to Range II sentences of forty-five (45) years and forty (40) years, respectively. The trial court ordered his forty (40) year armed robbery sentence to be served consecutive to his forty-five (45) year aggravated rape sentence. The defendant was also convicted of aggravated assault for which he received a concurrent seven (7) year sentence; however, for reasons stated in this opinion his aggravated assault conviction must be set aside.

In this appeal, the defendant says the trial court made an incorrect statement to the jury on voir dire regarding the law on his right to the presumption of innocence, contests the admission of certain evidence, says he was improperly denied a hearing on his motion to suppress, raises issues about the trial court’s instructions to the jury, and argues that his sentences were improperly imposed. We find no reversible error incident to the defendant’s aggravated rape and armed robbery convictions, but we do find merit to one portion of his sentencing issue.

The defendant does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence, but in order to explain our rulings on some of his issues, a recitation of some of the evidence will be helpful.

The State’s evidence showed that on March 24, 1983, the victim arrived at her duplex apartment at 5:55 a.m. The defendant was standing on the porch of his nearby duplex apartment. The victim entered her apartment, took a shower, and then heard a knock on her door. As she placed her hand on the doorknob, she noticed that it was already turning. The defendant came in and asked to use the phone. Subsequently, the defendant grabbed her by the arms and demanded a kiss. The victim went into her roommate’s bedroom to get a gun, but she could not find it. She returned to the living room, at which time the defendant was standing at the door. He had her purse under his arm, and he said, “I was going to steal your purse.” The defendant locked the door, grabbed the victim again by the arms, and struck her in the face and broke her glasses. The defendant then threw her into a chair, pulled out a knife, and continued to hit her in the face, choked her, and struck her with the knife which resulted in a deep puncture wound to her left upper arm. In the scuffle, the defendant received a cut on his finger with the same knife. Thereafter, the defendant raped the victim, took ten dollars ($10.00) from her and seventy-five dollars ($75.00) from her roommate’s room, and then left. In addition to the knife wound, the victim received head injuries. Soon after the event, the police arrested the defendant at his apartment where he was found hiding under the bed.

In his testimony, the defendant admitted being at the victim’s apartment on the occasion in question, and he attempted to con[193]*193vince the jury that he and the victim had a fight over a drug transaction. He said that the victim pointed a knife at him and that he slapped her hand away and struck her, causing her to fall, and that in falling, she fell on the knife and was wounded. The defendant denied that he raped or robbed the victim.

We need not further detail the evidence. Suffice it to say that the jury rejected the defendant’s version of the event, and accredited the testimony of the State’s witnesses. We find that the evidence is more than sufficient to show the defendant’s guilt.

Before we address the defendant’s issues, we will explain why the defendant’s conviction for aggravated assault must be set aside.

The defendant was charged in a three count indictment.

The first count charged him with aggravated rape, i.e. rape while “armed with a weapon, to-wit: a knife.” T.C.A. § 39-2-603(a)(1) (1982). The jury found him guilty of aggravated rape.

The second count charged the defendant with armed robbery, i.e. robbery “accomplished by the use of a deadly weapon, to-wit: a knife.” T.C.A. § 39-2-501 (1982). The jury found him guilty of armed robbery.

The third count charged the defendant with assault with intent to commit murder in the first degree, inflicting “bodily injury” upon the victim. T.C.A. § 39-2-103(a), (b) (1982). Regarding the third count, the jury reported that it found the defendant not guilty of assault with intent to commit murder in the first degree “involving bodily injury,” but rather found him guilty of the lesser included offense.of “aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.”

The jury’s verdict finding the defendant guilty of “aggravated assault with a deadly weapon” obviously had to be based on T.C.A. § 39-2-101(b)(3) (Supp.1984) which provides:

(b) Any person who:
(3) Assaults another while displaying a deadly weapon or while the victim knows such person has a deadly weapon in his possession ... is guilty of the offense of aggravated assault ...

As the proof developed in this case, the elements of this offense were all encompassed in the offense of aggravated rape by the use of a deadly weapon, for which the defendant was abo convicted.

The defendant’s conviction of aggravated rape on count one of the indictment was predicated on the fact that the assault was carried out while he was armed with a weapon, to-wit: the knife, and yet we see that his conviction on count three of the indictment of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon was also predicated on the fact that he committed the assault while displaying or being in possession of the same knife.

The offense of aggravated assault may or may not be a lesser included offense of aggravated rape, depending upon the allegations in the indictment and the proof. See Howard v. State, 578 S.W.2d 83 (Tenn.1979). See also State v. Johnson, 670 S.W.2d 634 (Tenn.Cr.App.1984).

We point out that while aggravated assault can be predicated on the fact that a deadly weapon was used, it can also be predicated on other facts. T.C.A. § 39-2-101(b)(1), (4) (Supp.1984). The same thing is true as to the offense of aggravated rape. T.C.A. § 39-2-603(a)(2), (3), (4) (1982). However, in the present case, as we have indicated, both of the aggravated assault elements, i.e., the assault and the use of the weapon, were elements involved in the defendant’s aggravated rape conviction.

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Bluebook (online)
689 S.W.2d 190, 1984 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 2678, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-reed-tenncrimapp-1984.