State v. Taylor

628 S.W.2d 42, 1981 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 410
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedDecember 3, 1981
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 628 S.W.2d 42 (State v. Taylor) 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. Taylor, 628 S.W.2d 42, 1981 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 410 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1981).

Opinion

OPINION

TATUM, Judge.

The defendant, Clifford Louis Taylor, was convicted of two counts charging aggravated kidnapping and sentenced to serve 30 years in the penitentiary on each of these charges. He was also convicted of armed robbery with punishment fixed at a term of 15 years in the State penitentiary. Upon a finding that the defendant was a habitual criminal, the armed robbery sentence was enhanced from 15 years to life. The two sentences for aggravated kidnapping were ordered by the trial judge to be served concurrently with each other but consecutively to the enhanced armed robbery sentence. The trial judge further ordered that the three sentences imposed in this case be consecutive to a 25-year sentence for a previous conviction for which the defendant was on parole when he committed these offenses.

On this appeal, the defendant has assigned 12 issues for review on various grounds. After considering the issues, we have determined that the judgments of conviction must be affirmed.

Two of the defendant’s issues attack the sufficiency of the evidence. The State’s evidence establishes that at approximately 6:30 P.M. on February 22,1980, the defendant and a companion entered the private apartment of Mrs. Loretta Roby and forced Mrs. Roby and her 9-year old daughter, at gunpoint, to drive them to the Memphis Area Teacher’s Credit Union, where Mrs. Roby held a managerial position. Upon arrival, the defendant forced Mrs. Roby to accompany him inside the credit union office while the defendant’s companion remained in Mrs. Roby’s automobile with her daughter. Inside the office, the defendant forced Mrs. Roby to open safes from which the defendant took approximately $30,000. While inside the credit union office, the defendant picked up a stack of travelers checks but discarded them when he was told by Mrs. Roby that they could be traced through serial numbers. After taking the money, the two men forced Mrs. Roby to drive them to an apartment building where they left Mrs. Roby and her daughter.

Separately, both Mrs. Roby and her daughter identified the defendant from an array of police photographs. Both also positively identified the defendant at trial. The travelers checks handled by the defendant during the robbery bore the defendant’s palm print and a fingerprint.

The defendant did not testify and the only defense witness was his live-in girlfriend, Alice Fay Clark. She testified that she left her son and the defendant at her home approximately 6:00 P.M. on the day of the crime and that both were there when she returned. Her testimony as to the time of her return was somewhat conflicting but we glean that she was estimating her return home at sometime between 8:00 P.M. and 8:20 P.M. Mrs. Roby had testified that she was in the company of the defendant from approximately 6:30 P.M. until approximately 8:00 P.M. Ms. Clark did not know whether the defendant had left her home between 6:00 P.M. and the time she returned with her girlfriend.

The evidence of the defendant’s guilt is overwhelming and it is not clearly contradicted. There is abundant evidence upon which a rational jury could be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt of the defendant’s guilt. The evidence meets the standard required by Rule 13(e), T.R.A.P. and Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).

The defendant assigns issue that the court erred in allowing the District Attorney General to argue with and ridicule Ms. Clark. He argues that the Assistant Dis[45]*45trict Attorney harrassed the witness by questioning her about her failure to testify at the preliminary hearing held in this ease. The record reflects that the Assistant District Attorney did not question the witness concerning the preliminary hearing but that these questions were asked by defense counsel. We find no improper cross examination of this witness.

The defendant complains that the trial court erred in allowing an officer from the Memphis Police Department Bureau of Identification to refer to his “records concerning” the defendant. He was allowed to testify that he had the defendant’s fingerprints, palm prints, and photographs in his “records” and the defendant insists that the jury would infer from this terminology that he had a previous criminal record. The dates when the prints and photographs were taken were not disclosed to the jury and there is nothing upon which the jury could reasonably conclude that any part of the record was compiled before the defendant’s arrest in this case. We find no error in this regard.

The defendant next contends that the trial court erred in permitting Mrs. Roby and her daughter to make an in-court identification of him. On cross examination, both of these witnesses testified that they had never been inside a courtroom previous to this case and requested the Assistant District Attorney General to familiarize them with it before they testified. They entered the courtroom during a recess with the Assistant District Attorney who familiarized them with the layout of the courtroom. Both testified that they did not see the defendant in the courtroom during this visit and that they were not told where the defendant would be sitting. The evidence is uncontradicted that if the defendant was, in fact, in the courtroom, he was not observed by either witness. We have noted no evidence that the defendant was actually in the courtroom during this time. The defendant’s brief ignores Rule 27(g), T.R.A.P. This issue is overruled.

The defendant next complains that the trial judge erred in allowing evidence that the child witness, Terri Roby, made a pretrial identification of a photograph of the defendant as one of the kidnappers and robbers. Evidence was admitted without objection that the child selected a photograph of the defendant from an array of photographs. He now complains that the evidence was not admissible because the remaining photographs in the array were not produced at trial. No pretrial motion to suppress this evidence was made and no contemporaneous objection was made when the evidence was offered. The defendant waived any right to object. State v. Wilson, 611 S.W.2d 843 (Tenn.Cr.App.1980) and the cases therein discussed.

The defendant next asserts that the trial judge erred in sustaining the State’s objection to a question asked Policeman Nelms. The question sought to show a prior contradictory statement. The objection was sustained by the trial judge because the proper foundation had not been laid.

Mrs. Roby had testified on direct that she talked to several policemen the night of the crimes and that one particular officer, whose name she did not recall, “spent a lot of time” talking with her. Subsequent to the date of the crime, a different officer did most of the interviewing. None of these officers were particularly identified.

During her testimony at trial, she said that the defendant was wearing a stocking mask when he entered her apartment. After she and her daughter began screaming, the defendant pulled the mask “up on top of his head,” thereby permitting her to observe his face. Upon cross examination, Mrs. Roby was asked and answered as follows:

“Q. Alright, Mrs. Roby, on the night that this robbery occurred, did you tell the police that the tall man that robbed you took his mask off?
A. I don’t recall. I guess I did. I’m not sure.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
628 S.W.2d 42, 1981 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 410, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-taylor-tenncrimapp-1981.