State of Tennessee v. Curtis Keller

The defendant, Curtis Keller, was convicted of three counts of aggravated robbery, three counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, four counts of attempted aggravated robbery, four counts of aggravated assault, one count of aggravated burglary, and one count of intentionally evading arrest in a motor vehicle. For these convictions, he was given an effective sentence of three hundred years. The defendant filed a direct appeal with this court raising multiple issues. This court concluded that the defendant’s claims lacked merit and affirmed the judgments of the trial court, including the convictions for especially aggravated kidnapping. Thereafter, the defendant filed an application for permission to appeal with the Tennessee Supreme Court. The application was granted in part, and the case was remanded to this court to be reconsidered in light of State v. White, 362 S.W.3d 559 (Tenn. 2012) and State v. Cecil, 409 S.W.3d 599 (Tenn. 2013). Upon remand, we conclude that, contrary to the asserted argument, the White jury instruction was given to the jury. Thus, we are limited to a simple sufficiency of the evidence review, the same review we conducted during the direct appeal. Having already concluded that the evidence was sufficient, we again affirm the judgments of conviction.