Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals upholds Conviction for DUI: no requirement for police to give blood or breath test.

by Lee Davis

Intoximeter

In State of Tennessee v. Gail Lynn Padgett, a Knox County woman was convicted of driving under the influence of an intoxicant (her fourth conviction), driving on a revoked license and two counts of disorderly conduct. The trial court sentenced Padgett to one year in jail with 150 days served in conferment and the rest on probation. Her license was revoked for five years and she was required to attend DUI school. 

Padgett has appealed, arguing that the evidence is insufficient to sustain a conviction, the trial court erred in denying her Motion to Dismiss for the State’s failure to preserve evidence and for denying her Motion to Suppress evidence of her actions to police due to lack of the probable cause necessary to have arrested her in the first place. The State Court of Criminal Appeals rejected Padgett’s claims and affirmed the ruling of the trial court.

Padgett first filed a Motion to Suppress arguing that video evidence attained by the arresting officer’s police car should be suppressed due to the lack of probable cause in arresting her. The facts showed the following: At a little after 8 in the morning on May 28, 2008, Officer James Wilson got a call about an accident. He arrived and testified that before exiting his vehicle he turned on the microphone and video recorder in his police cruiser. 

While speaking to those at the scene, Wilson hit a car passing by her driveway. Padgett started yelling that she was not in the wrong. Wilson allegedly observed Padgett stumbling and detected a very strong odor of alcohol on her breath. Based on this behavior he placed her under arrest. Because of Padgett’s erratic behavior he was unable to perform any field sobriety tests. Wilson later swore out a warrant for her arrest noting her slurred speech, glassy bloodshot eyes and her unsteadiness while walking. Wilson admits to not listing the smell of alcohol and explained that he must have just forgotten to write it down. The trial court agreed that Officer Wilson had probable cause to arrest Padgett for disorderly conduct, not DUI, and denied Padgett’s Motion to Suppress.

Padgett then filed a Motion to Dismiss due to lack of evidence. No blood alcohol test was ever performed nor was a Breathalyzer test administered. Wilson claims this was because of Padgett’s wild behavior following her arrest. The trial court again denied Padgett’s Motion and decided to proceed. 

At trial much the same evidence was discussed. The video and audio recordings were also admitted into evidence and seemed to support much of what Officer Wilson had testified to. 

On appeal, Padgett contends that because no field sobriety tests were performed there can be no evidence to support a DUI conviction. The State counters by saying that other evidence supports such a conviction. The Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with the state, citing the three witnesses who testified to Padgett’s appearance and behavior that day. Such evidence is adequate for a reasonable trier of fact to conclude that she was under the influence and a field sobriety test is not required to support a DUI conviction.

With regard to Padgett’s Motion to Dismiss, the Court of Criminal Appeals says that there is no duty by an officer to administer a blood alcohol test. The only requirement is that if such a test is not administered, then that failure shall be “admissible in evidence in a criminal proceeding.” T.C.A. Section 55-10-407(b). Here that hurdle was cleared as the jury was fully informed during both direct and cross-examination that Wilson did not request that Padgett submit to a blood alcohol test. 

Turning to the Motion to Suppress, the Court says that Wilson had sufficient probable cause to justify an arrest for disorderly conduct and that Wilson did not have to explain to Padgett that she was being arrested for such a charge in order to make the arrest valid. The Court went further in saying that Wilson did have probable cause to arrest Padgett for DUI. Under T.C.A. Section 40-7-103(a)(6), Wilson personally observed Padgett’s behavior and actions and believed she was intoxicated, thus granting him the probable cause necessary to arrest Padgett for DUI.

For the full opinion, click here.

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TN Court of Criminal Appeals Reverses Evidence Tampering Conviction

• State of Tennessee v. Ashlee N. Appleton

The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals decided the case of Ashlee Appleton last week. A jury convicted Appleton of tampering with evidence. The case centers around a murder that occurred on September 8, 2009. There are no accusations that Appleton had any involvement in the murder itself; however, Appleton was charged with tampering with evidence because she admitted to disposing of the gun that was used to commit the murder.

According to Appleton's written confession, given voluntarily after being advised of her Miranda rights, Appleton was at the house with a bunch of her friends. While she was standing in the yard of the house, she heard a pop that sounded like a firework from the other side of the house. She immediately got in her car with some of her friends and drove off. Amidst her journey back to Chattanooga, Jeresse Edwards, the accused shooter, informed Appleton that he had the gun in her car. Wanting to get the gun out of her car, Appelton said she threw the gun off a bridge around the Nickajack Dam.

The State relied on this evidence at trial. Once Appleton was convicted, she appealed to this Court arguing that the State did not satisfy their burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that she tampered with the evidence.

The Court of Appeals agreed. The standard used by the Court was "corpus delicti", which means the "body of the crime." In order to obtain a conviction, the State must prove the corpus delicti of tampering with evidence. Two elements are required to prove the corpus delicti: first, that a certain result has been produced, and, second, that the result was created through criminal agency. Because of this standard, the Court reasoned, when a Defendant confesses to a certain crime, some corroborating evidence is required to establish the corpus delicti of the offense charged. The problem with the State's case, the Court held, was that they did not produce enough corroborating evidence to prove that Appleton tampered with the evidence. Specifically, the defendant never admitted to knowing that a gun had been fired, or that anyone had been killed. Further, investigators never found the gun, and the State did not produce any evidence that the Defendant had knowledge that the gun had been used in a crime. Without this corroborating evidence, the Court held, the conviction must be reversed.

Tennessee Court of Appeals Reduces First Degree Murder Conviction

• STATE OF TENNESSEE v. DAVID HOOPER CLIMER, JR

Court of Appeals, Jackson, TN

The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals recently reduced the first-degree murder conviction of a Gibson County man accused of killing and dismembering his own mother. In this disturbing case, the state failed to include sufficient proof of premeditation to survive a challenge on appeal. However, the Appeals Court decided that there was sufficient evidence to support a lesser, second-degree murder conviction.

The case began in January 2008, when Climer led authorities to the remains of his mother, Dorris DeBerry. Climer had buried DeBerry in woods in northwest Madison County, Tennessee. Investigators believe DeBerry was killed in late November 2007 and that Climer buried her remains around December 5, 2007. The mother and son had lived together in a mobile home near Gibson, Tennessee prior to her death.

Climer admitted to authorities that he was responsible for dismembering his mother’s body, but was vehement that he had not killed her. He was sentenced to life in prison on the first-degree murder charge after a jury found him guilty and on the abuse of a corpse count. The abuse of a corpse charge was intended to run concurrently with his life sentence.

On appeal, Climer’s attorneys argued that the evidence was insufficient to support a premeditated murder conviction. Moreover, his attorney claimed that Climer was suffering from insanity when he decapitated his mother’s corpse. The insanity claim was rejected on appeal.


The Court noted, "that the parties’ opening and closing statements, in which the State would have argued its theory of the case to the jury, have not been included in the record on appeal. According to the State’s brief, the prosecution’s theory of the case was that the appellant killed his mother and dismembered her body and hid it to conceal his crime." Obviously, the Court struggled to find premeditation and when it could not find the proof included in the record, it was reluctant to infer it from the mere gruesomeness of the crime.  In a fairly unusual move, the court reversed the conviction for first degree murder absent sufficient proof of premeditation.

The Court reduced Climer’s conviction to second-degree murder and remanded the case to a trial court for resentencing. Climer’s conviction of abuse of a corpse was affirmed. His resentencing is set for early April in Humboldt County. Here is a link to the full opinion: STATE OF TENNESSEE v. DAVID HOOPER CLIMER, JR.

Read: “Climer sentence reduced: Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the first-degree murder conviction,” by Jordan Buie, published at JacksonSun.com.

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