State of Tennessee v. Brandon Churchman

The defendant was convicted by a jury of reckless homicide, first degree (felony) murder and two counts of facilitation of attempted first degree murder. These convictions all sprang from an incident in which shots were fired at three men in a car during an attempted robbery. To establish the defendant’s identity as the murderer the State introduced evidence at trial of a separate carjacking and shooting committed by the defendant and an accomplice several hours prior to the homicide. The defendant, who had pled guilty to the attempted first degree murder of the carjacking victim prior to trial on the instant charges, asserts on appeal that the two incidents were subject to mandatory joinder and that he could not be tried for the charges in the present indictment after he had pled guilty to the attempted first degree murder. He also appeals the trial court’s decision to admit the evidence of the carjacking, the trial court’s limits on cross-examination of a witnesses, the trial court’s evidentiary decisions regarding hearsay, and the trial court’s denial of a mistrial. After a thorough review of the record, we conclude that there was no error and we affirm the judgments of the trial court.