State of Tennessee v. Derrick Settles

The Defendant, Derrick Settles, was convicted of two counts of first degree murder and two counts of possession of over .5 ounces of marijuana with the intent to sell. The jury sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole for one murder conviction, and the trial court ordered a consecutive life sentence for the other. The trial court also merged the possession offenses into a single conviction and imposed a concurrent sentence of one year for that conviction. In this appeal, the Defendant argues that the trial court erred by denying his pretrial motions to suppress the evidence recovered from a search of his apartment and his confession because he lacked the intellectual capacity to validly consent to the search or effectively waive the rights guaranteed him by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 479 (1966). Following our review, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.