State of Tennessee v. Christopher Hein

The defendant, Christopher Kevan Hein, was charged with the first degree murder of his girlfriend and convicted by a Knox County Criminal Court jury of the lesser-included offense of criminally negligent homicide, a Class E felony. He was sentenced by the trial court as a Range I, standard offender to two years in the Department of Correction, which had already been served by the conclusion of the trial. In this timely filed appeal as of right, he raises the following five issues: (1) whether the trial court erred in precluding the defense from introducing taped statements that an unavailable witness, Thomas Hendrix, made to an undercover informant and to a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation ("TBI") agent in which he described his participation in the burning of the victim's body and stated that the murder was committed by George Cate; (2) whether the trial court erred in precluding the defense from introducing Cate's statements to law enforcement officers; (3) whether the trial court erred in allowing an officer who was not qualified as an expert witness to express his opinion regarding the tendency of suspects during interrogation to minimize their involvement in crimes; (4) whether the trial court erred in precluding the defense from calling an expert witness to rebut the officer's opinion; and (5) whether the trial court erred in allowing the State to present evidence of the defendant's application for food stamps, in contravention of state and federal law. Having reviewed the record and found no reversible error, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.