Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts

A Davidson County jury convicted the Defendant, Abu Musa Abdullah, of three counts of aggravated sexual battery and two counts of rape of a child. The trial court sentenced the Defendant to serve an effective sentence of fifty-five years in the Tennessee Department of Correction. On delayed appeal, the Defendant asserts that the trial court erred when it: (1) limited cross-examination of two State witnesses; and (2) ordered an excessive sentence. After review, we affirm the trial court’s judgments.

Defendant, Rashan Lateef Jordan, appeals from his conviction for the sale of more than 0.5 grams of cocaine within one thousand feet of a childcare agency. Defendant was sentenced to 15 years for his conviction. On appeal, Defendant contends: (1) that the trial court erred by not granting his motion to dismiss for lack of a speedy trial; (2) the jury instructions were inadequate and failed to include a lesser included offense; and (3) the jury instructions were confusing to the jury and in attempting to make clarifications, the trial court unduly influenced the jurors. Having reviewed the parties’ briefs and the entire record, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Petitioner, Jonathan Grimes, appeals from the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief, which sought relief from his conviction of aggravated sexual battery. On appeal, Petitioner asserts four claims of ineffective assistance of counsel: (1) trial counsels did not take reasonable steps to keep the State from presenting prejudicial allegations at trial that were not included in the indictment; (2) trial counsels failed to communicate a favorable plea and failed to actively seek out a favorable plea for Petitioner; (3) trial counsels failed to visit or take photos of the crime scene; and (4) trial counsels failed to present evidence of the victim’s medical history regarding her credibility. After reviewing the briefs and the record, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

The Petitioner, David Allen Binkley, appeals the post-conviction court’s denial of his petition for post-conviction relief in which he challenged his guilty plea to aggravated robbery and his effective sentence of eight years with a release eligibility date of eighty-five percent. On appeal, the Petitioner alleges that he received ineffective assistance of counsel and that his guilty plea was not knowingly entered. After a review of the record and applicable law, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

I dissent from the dismissal of this appeal. The majority contends that the certified question is not dispositive of the case because “even if the Defendant’s consent to search the home was constitutionally invalid and exigent circumstances did not exist, the evidence would have been inevitably discovered.” The majority rests its decision on the theory that the deputies could have obtained and executed a search warrant to search the Defendant’s home for the third-party arrestee, Dishman, which would have eventually revealed the drug-related evidence. I believe that the majority misapprehends the inevitable discovery doctrine in rejecting the certified question in this case. See United States v. Quinney, 583 F.3d 891, 894-95 (6th Cir. 2009) (reversing denial of motion to suppress evidence seized from defendant’s residence without a warrant based on misapplication of inevitable discovery doctrine after recognizing that finding the evidence admissible simply because the agents could have obtained a warrant would have totally obviated the warrant requirement); State v. Cothran, 115 S.W.3d 513, 525 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2003) (“Proof of inevitable discovery ‘involves no speculative elements but focuses on demonstrated historical facts capable of ready verification or impeachment.’”) (quoting Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 421, 444 n.5 (1984)). Applying the inevitable discovery doctrine, as the majority has done here, would render virtually every Fourth Amendment determination certified pursuant to Rule 37 meaningless. Regardless, based on this record, the inevitable discovery doctrine does not defeat the dispositive nature of the certified question in this case.

Following a bench trial, Robert D. Cameron, III, Defendant, was convicted of driving under the influence (“DUI”) and DUI per se. On appeal, Defendant asserts that the trial court erred in denying his Motion to Suppress the video recording of his traffic stop, the blood test results, and the results of his field sobriety tests. The trial court found reasonable suspicion for the stop and probable cause for the ensuing arrest. Finding no error, we affirm.

The Defendant, G’wayne Kennedy Williams, a/k/a Kenney Williams, was convicted by a jury of three counts of rape, eight counts of rape of a child, three counts of aggravated statutory rape, three counts of statutory rape by an authority figure, three counts of sexual battery by an authority figure, eleven counts of incest, eight counts of aggravated sexual battery, and two counts of violating the sex offender registry. The trial court imposed an effective sentence of sixty-four years’ incarceration. On appeal, the Defendant argues (1) that the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions for rape and rape of a child; (2) that the trial court erred by admitting evidence of the Defendant’s prior bad acts; (3) that admission of the victim’s complete hospital record was improper given that the records contained hearsay statements and that the record was prepared for purposes of prosecution; (4) that the trial court erred by qualifying a witness as an expert in sexual assault nurse examination; (5) that the trial court erred by not declaring a mistrial after the State attempted to enter a recording of the victim’s forensic interview into evidence without having provided the interview to the defense before trial; (6) that the trial court erred by failing to sever the sex offender registry charges; and (7) that the trial court erred in its application of enhancement and mitigating factors in sentencing. Following a thorough review of the record, we conclude that the evidence is insufficient to support five counts of rape of a child, five counts of aggravated sexual battery, and five counts of incest. In addition, some of the convictions for incest, aggravated statutory rape, statutory rape by an authority figure, and sexual battery by an authority figure were improperly merged. We remand the case for resentencing and the entry of new judgments. In all other respects, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

The Defendant, Steven Dale Davidson, Jr., was convicted by a jury of voluntary manslaughter and vehicular homicide. Thereafter, the trial court merged the counts and imposed an effective ten-year sentence, to run consecutively to a previous sentence for which probation had been revoked due to the convictions in this case. On appeal, the Defendant contends that the trial court erred by excluding the complete police interview of a defense witness and in its consideration during sentencing of enhancement and mitigating factors. Upon review of the record and the applicable law, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

I agree with all of Judge McMullen’s well-reasoned opinion except the determination that the trial court abused its discretion in allowing the audio recording of the 911 call to be played in its entirety before the jury.

The Petitioner, Antonio M. Crockett, appeals from the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief, wherein he challenged his jury conviction for first-degree felony murder. On appeal, the Petitioner alleges the following grounds of ineffective assistance of trial counsel: (1) failure to impeach a witness; (2) failure to assert a proper basis for severance pretrial or renew the motion to sever at trial; (3) failure to request a jury instruction; (4) failure to object to the State’s articulating multiple theories during its closing argument; (5) failure to object to the prosecutor’s inflammatory comments during the State’s rebuttal argument; (6) failure to develop and present evidence of the disproportionality of a mandatory life sentence. The Petitioner also argues that his mandatory life sentence is unconstitutional and that he was deprived of a fair trial on the basis of cumulative error. After a thorough review of the record, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

A Shelby County jury convicted the Petitioner, Trumaine Winters, of first-degree murder and aggravated robbery, and the trial court sentenced him to life in prison for the murder conviction plus twelve years for the robbery conviction. The Petitioner appealed his convictions and sentence to this court, and we affirmed the convictions but remanded for resentencing. State v. Trumaine Winters, No. W2007-00529-CCA-R3-CD, 2008 WL 2901616 (Tenn. Crim. App., at Jackson, July 24, 2008), perm. app. denied (Tenn. Apr. 13, 2015). The Petitioner filed a timely petition for post-conviction relief, alleging that his trial counsel was ineffective for improperly
cross-examining key witnesses and for not objecting to prosecutorial misconduct. The post-conviction court denied the petition after a hearing. After review, we affirm the post-conviction court’s judgment.

The petitioner, Joshua Iceman, appeals the denial of his post-conviction petition, arguing the post-conviction court erred in finding he received the effective assistance of counsel at trial. Following our review, we affirm the denial of the petition.