(06/21/1999)
Supreme Court Unanimously Denies Death Row Appeal
The Tennessee Supreme Court has unanimously rejected an appeal by death row inmate Donald Wayne Strouth, sentenced to death for murdering a Kingsport merchant by hitting him in the head and slitting his throat during a robbery at the victim’s used clothing store.
Strouth and Jeffrey Stuart Dicks, who died in prison last month, were convicted of the 1978 murder of James Keegan, 70. Strouth, 19 at the time of the murder, and Dicks each accused the other of killing Keegan. The men were tried separately and both received death sentences.
In his second post-conviction appeal, denied Monday by the court, Strouth said one of two aggravating circumstances found by jurors - that the murder was committed during a felony crime - is constitutionally invalid. In a 1992 ruling, State v. Donald Middlebrooks, the Supreme Court held that when a defendant is convicted of first degree murder solely on the basis of felony murder, or murder committed during a felony crime, the aggravating circumstance duplicates elements of the underlying crime and fails to narrow the class of defendants eligible for the death penalty.
Under state law, a death sentence can be given only if the jury finds at least one valid aggravating circumstance which outweighs all mitigating circumstances.
The law lists 14 aggravating circumstances jurors may consider in death penalty cases.
Jurors found Strouth guilty of murder in the perpetration of a robbery and robbery with a deadly weapon. Besides the felony murder aggravating circumstance, the jury also found the state had proven the murder was “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel in that it involved torture or depravity of mind” and there were no mitigating circumstances sufficient to outweigh the aggravating circumstances.
Writing for the Supreme Court, Justice Frank Drowota said the use of the invalid felony murder aggravating circumstance was “harmless error” because of the strength of the remaining aggravating circumstance. Strouth contended in his appeal that because Keegan was unconscious when his throat was cut, he did not experience pain and the killing was not “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel in that it involved torture or depravity of mind.” The court disagreed with the argument.
“The cruelty with which the perpetrators attacked this elderly man and showed no mercy toward him after he was already unconscious and helpless demonstrates depravity of mind,” Drowota wrote. “... Unless stayed by this court or other proper authority, Strouth’s sentence of death by electrocution shall be carried out on October 28, 1999.”
In a separate concurring opinion, Justice Janice Holder agreed with the denial of Strouth’s post-conviction petition to appeal but disagreed with the majority that a Middlebrooks error occurred.
“The jury in this case was clearly charged that first degree murder can be committed in one of two ways; with premeditation and deliberation or during the perpetration of a felony,” she wrote. “The jury returned a non-specific verdict finding the defendant ?guilty of murder in the first degree.’ I, therefore, would hold that a Middlebrooks error did not occur in this case because the defendant’s conviction for first degree murder was not based solely on felony murder.”
Holder also agreed with the majority that even if a Middlebrooks error had occurred the error would have been harmless.
(06/21/1999)
Cable Television to Air Supreme Court Arguments in Adoption Records Case
Arguments before the Tennessee Supreme Court in Promise Doe v. Don Sundquist, a case involving Tennessee’s adoption records law, will be aired at 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 23, on Metro Government Channel 3 on InterMedia in Davidson County.
“The court welcomes the public scrutiny and hopes that many citizens will take advantage of this opportunity to view their judicial system at work,” Chief Justice Riley Anderson said. “It is part of the Supreme Court’s commitment to open and accessible courts.”
The court will decide whether a state law opening adoption records is constitutional. The law, if upheld, would allow adult adoptees to request their records. Birth mothers, adoptive parents and an adoption agency sued to prevent the 1996 law from taking effect, claiming it would violate their constitutional right to privacy. The state argued that the legislation did not change any rights, but only the method for obtaining information.
The cable station also will air Supreme Court oral arguments in four other cases at 7 p.m. Friday, June 25.
The five-member Supreme Court, the highest court in the state, reviews cases appealed from lower courts. Arguments before the court are limited to 30 minutes for each side.
(05\18\1999)
Supreme Court Clears Way for Sentencing Hearing
A death row inmate represented at trial by an attorney who abused drugs and alcohol and another lawyer with no capital case experience has been granted a new sentencing hearing based on his claim of “ineffective assistance of counsel.” The Tennessee Supreme Court allowed state prosecutors and inmate David Allen Brimmer to withdraw their appeals, sending the case back to the Anderson County Criminal Court for resentencing.
In a 1998 opinion, the state Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Brimmer’s conviction for the murder of Rodney Compton, whose body was discovered in a rural Loudon County hayfield. The court also ordered a new sentencing hearing because Brimmer’s attorney was ineffective during the sentencing phase of his 1991 trial.
The Court of Criminal Appeals said in its opinion there was proof that one of the attorneys “regularly abused alcohol during the time he represented” Brimmer. The second attorney, appointed two months prior to the trial, testified that co-counsel “would arrive at early morning meetings with a six-pack of beer.” He also said the attorney acknowledged consuming “a lot of alcohol and cocaine.” The second attorney had been practicing law for three years and had completed three criminal trials, none of them capital cases.
The two attorneys were deficient in their presentation of expert testimony concerning the relationship between Brimmer’s mental and emotional disorders and the commission of the crime, the Court of Criminal Appeals concluded. A psychologist testified at a post-conviction hearing that there was a connection between Brimmer’s mental disorders and his crimes.
“This testimony would have been presented in relation to the statutory mitigators during the sentencing phase of the trial had the proper questions been presented by defense counsel,” the Court of Criminal Appeals wrote. “... Due to his counsel’s errors in this case, instructions permitting the jury to consider that the defendant suffered from a mental disease or that the murder was committed while the defendant was under extreme mental disturbance were rejected.”
(05/17/1999)
State Supreme Court Upholds Death Sentence for Sullivan County Murder
The death sentence a Sullivan County jury imposed for a 1984 murder committed during a country store robbery is constitutionally valid, the Tennessee Supreme Court held Monday, rejecting an appeal by inmate Leonard Edward Smith and affirming the penalty.
“We have considered the defendant’s assignments of error and determined that none have merit,” Justice Frank Drowota wrote for the majority. “... The defendant’s sentence of death by electrocution is affirmed.”
Smith was convicted of first degree murder for the shooting death of Novella Webb, 59, during the robbery of a store she and her husband owned and operated. Her 79-year-old husband was injured when Smith and his friend, David Hartsock, pushed him into a trash can, breaking his ribs.
Smith, Hartsock and his girlfriend, Angela O’Quinn, had robbed another rural Sullivan County store about 45 minutes earlier, shooting and killing John Pierce. In a trial for both murders, Smith received a life sentence for his role in the Pierce killing in addition to a death sentence for the murder of Webb.
On his first direct appeal, the Supreme Court affirmed Smith’s conviction and life sentence for Pierce’s murder, but ordered a new trial in the Webb case. The court concluded the offenses should not have been joined for trial and found prosecutorial misconduct. Smith was again convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death.
Smith’s second appeal also resulted in a reversal of the death sentence. A new sentencing hearing was ordered and Smith again received a death sentence, which has been upheld.
In the appeal resulting in Monday’s ruling, Smith argued that Webb’s daughter should not have been allowed to testify at his sentencing hearing about the effect of her mother’s death on the family. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Adolpho A. Birch, Jr. agreed, writing that the “admission of victim impact evidence is unconstitutional unless its admission is thoughtfully controlled and carefully restricted.” In his dissent, Birch said “every death includes the potential to devastate those left behind,” but sentences should be based on law rather than the impact of a murder on family and friends.
“The jury’s role in capital sentencing is expressly limited to considering whether or not the aggravating factors outweigh any mitigating factors,” he wrote.
Also, Birch wrote, the testimony “invites jurors to deem it a greater crime” to murder a victim whose family and friends testify than to take the life of someone without family and friends. He said the evidence “ provides jurors with the opportunity to vary punishment according to the degree of vengeance sought by family or friends.”
A majority of the Supreme Court disagreed, citing State v. Nesbit in which the court held that impact evidence is valid when “limited to information designed to show those unique characteristics which provide a brief glimpse into the life” of the victim. In the opinion, the court set guidelines for victim impact evidence and said it may be disallowed if it “threatens to render the trial fundamentally unfair or poses a danger of unfair prejudice.”
(5/10/1999)
Supreme Court Appoints Circuit Judge as State Courts Director
Circuit Court Judge Cornelia Clark of Franklin was selected Tuesday by the Tennessee Supreme Court as the state’s new administrative director of the courts. Clark was chosen from among 62 applicants for the position.
“We had an exceptional pool of applicants and the three finalists were outstanding, which made the Court’s choice difficult. We believe Judge Clark is best qualified to lead the Administrative Office of the Courts and help us guide the state court system into the new millennium.” Chief Justice Riley Anderson said.
The director oversees the Administrative Office of the Courts in Nashville, prepares and manages a $65 million budget for the judicial branch of state government and provides support to 178 judges and approximately 472 court personnel across Tennessee. Additional responsibilities include strategic planning, policy implementation, judicial education, court automation and serving as liaison to the executive and legislative branches.
An eight-member search committee including judges and the president of the State Court Clerks’ Association narrowed the list of 62 applicants to the three finalists. Anderson said the position attracted applicants from across Tennessee and 15 other states.
Clark who earned degrees from Vanderbilt University, Harvard University and the Vanderbilt University School of Law, taught in public and private high schools in Georgia before entering the practice of law in Williamson and Davidson counties. She also served as Franklin city attorney and has taught at the Vanderbilt School of Law since 1990. Clark was appointed by Gov. Ned McWherter in 1989 as circuit judge for the 21st Judicial District and was elected in 1990 and 1998.
(05/11/1999)
Supreme Court Denies Post-Conviction Appeal in Death Penalty Case
In an order filed Monday, the Tennessee Supreme Court rejected a petition to appeal filed by death row inmate Michael Angelo Coleman whose victim was shot to death during a 1979 Memphis robbery.
Coleman, 42, was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of 69-year-old Leon Watson. The victim was killed in his car after leaving home to go to a nearby grocery store. Coleman confessed to the crime and led police to Watson’s body, which had been left in a field. Watson’s empty wallet and items from his automobile were scattered near his body.
The Supreme Court upheld Coleman’s conviction and death sentence on direct appeal in 1981. His first post-conviction petition was denied by the court in 1984. A second post- conviction petition, claiming Coleman was entitled to a new sentencing hearing, was filed in 1993, dismissed by the trial court in 1996 and denied by the Court of Criminal Appeals in 1998.
At his sentencing hearing, jurors found two aggravating circumstances which outweighed mitigating circumstances, making Coleman eligible under Tennessee law to receive the death penalty. In his second appeal, Coleman claimed his death sentence should be overturned because one of the aggravating circumstances - felony murder - was deemed constitutionally invalid pursuant to a 1992 Supreme Court ruling which held invalid the use of felony murder as an aggravating circumstance to impose the death penalty where it duplicated the underlying conviction of felony murder, or murder committed during a felony crime.
The Court of Criminal Appeals, in its 1998 opinion, said the other aggravating factor - Coleman’s six previous convictions for violent felonies - outweighed mitigating factors and his sentence would have been the same without the felony murder aggravator.
Since the 1995 enactment of the state Post Conviction Procedures Act, Tennessee inmates hoping to have their sentences overturned have been limited to a single post-conviction petition in state courts in most cases. The law also requires that the petitions for post-conviction relief be filed within one year of the final judgment or final action taken by a state appellate court.