IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE

AT JACKSON

Assigned on Briefs March 1, 2016

JOSUE SEGURA v. STATE OF TENNESSEE

 Appeal from the Criminal Court for Shelby County

No. 07-00667 John W. Campbell, Judge

No. W2015-00929-CCA-R3-PC - Filed July 26, 2016

Petitioner, Josue Segura, appeals the denial of his petition for post-conviction relief, 

arguing that the trial court erred in finding that he received effective assistance of 

counsel. Following a thorough review of the record, we affirm the judgment of the postconviction court. 

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Criminal Court Affirmed

THOMAS T. WOODALL, P.J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which ROBERT L.

HOLLOWAY,JR., and ROBERT H. MONTGOMERY, JR., JJ., joined.

Randal G. Rhea, Memphis, Tennessee, for the appellant, Josue Segura.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Jonathan H. Wardle, Assistant 

Attorney General; Amy P. Weirich, District Attorney General; and Lessie Rainey, 

Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

I. Background

Petitioner was convicted by a Shelby County Criminal Court jury of first degree 

murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. His convictions were affirmed by this Court 

on direct appeal, and our supreme court denied his application for permission to appeal. 

See State v. Josue Segura, No. W2010-00952-CCA-R3-CD, 2012 WL 4078910, at *1 

(Tenn. Crim. App. Sept. 18, 2012), perm. app. denied (Tenn. Feb. 13, 2013). Our direct 

appeal opinion provides the following overview of the crime: 

On May 27, 2006, the body of Daniel Darby, the victim, was found 

in a rut in an area of Memphis known as “Frayser bottoms.” The victim’s 
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skull had been crushed as a result of five to seven blows to his head with a 

blunt object. [Petitioner] was the last person to be seen with the victim. 

Two days after the victim’s body was found, [Petitioner] told authorities 

that he struck the victim seven times with a lead pipe in self-defense. 

Id. 

In his trial testimony, Petitioner related that he and the victim had been drinking, 

using drugs, and recreating with two female companions at the Loosahatchie River when 

the victim’s vehicle became mired in the mud. Id. at *11. He said the two women called 

a friend, who came and picked up the women, while he and the victim remained behind at 

the river bottoms attempting to extricate the vehicle. Id. at *11-12. According to 

Petitioner, as they worked to free the vehicle, the victim became angry, repeatedly cursed 

him, and eventually struck him with his fists. Id. at *12. Petitioner claimed he was afraid 

of the victim and when the victim swung at him again, he hit the victim with a metal pipe 

that had been lying on the passenger side floorboard of the vehicle. Petitioner said he 

struck the victim six or seven times with the pipe because the victim grabbed hold of 

Petitioner’s pants and would not let him go. Id.

On October 3, 2013, Petitioner filed a pro se petition for post-conviction relief in 

which he raised a number of claims, including ineffective assistance of counsel. 

Following the appointment of counsel, he filed an amended petition which incorporated 

the claims in his pro se petition and included additional allegations of ineffective 

assistance of counsel. Although Petitioner alleged several instances of ineffective 

assistance of counsel in his original and amended petitions, on appeal he argues only that 

counsel was ineffective for failing to request a jury instruction on voluntary intoxication 

to negate Petitioner’s culpable mental state. We will, thus, summarize only those 

portions of the evidentiary hearing that are pertinent to that issue. 

Trial counsel testified that some time before trial, he substituted as counsel for the 

public defender’s office, which was Petitioner’s original counsel in the case. Petitioner 

had a seventeen-year offer from the State at the time counsel began his representation,

but counsel was able to eventually negotiate either a fourteen- or fifteen-year offer. 

Petitioner, however, rejected the offer because he wanted to take the case to trial. 

Trial counsel testified that Petitioner told him that he was drinking and smoking 

crack cocaine on the day of the crime and that the trial witnesses and discovery 

confirmed Petitioner’s account of his drug usage. Petitioner, however, “always tried to 

downplay his drug use[.]” Trial counsel acknowledged he concentrated at trial on a selfdefense argument and testified that, while the issue of Petitioner’s intoxication came out 

in his defense proof, he was “not really sure if [he] really focused on it.” Counsel 
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explained that he made a strategic decision to base his defense on self-defense, testifying 

that he did not want to “rub the jury the wrong way” by trying to excuse Petitioner’s 

behavior by his drug and alcohol use. 

Trial counsel additionally testified that Petitioner consistently maintained that he 

acted in self-defense, and, although he mentioned having smoked crack cocaine and 

having drunk alcohol with the women, he also said that he was swimming during that 

time, which, counsel indicated, suggested to him that Petitioner was not that intoxicated. 

Moreover, the proof was that “some hours had passed” from when the women left and 

when the victim was killed, during which time Petitioner and the victim were trying to 

extricate the vehicle. Counsel agreed that intoxication could “remove mens rea for first 

degree murder” and that the jury was not given any instruction on intoxication. 

On cross-examination, trial counsel testified that he had tried twenty to thirty 

murder cases by the time he represented Petitioner and that he was successful in all but 

one of those cases in either achieving a not guilty verdict or a guilty verdict on a lesser 

included charge. In Petitioner’s case, Petitioner was adamant that he had acted in selfdefense when he struck the victim. Counsel said he explained to Petitioner that his large 

size relative to the under-100-pound victim, and the fact that the victim was unarmed, 

could present a problem with his claim of self-defense, but Petitioner “was adamant that 

was what happened and that he wanted to testify and tell how he defended himself 

against [the victim].” 

Upon questioning by the post-conviction court, trial counsel testified that both of 

Petitioner’s statements to police were consistent with his trial testimony that he acted in 

self-defense. He also confirmed that Petitioner’s motion to suppress the statements had 

already been denied by the trial court before trial counsel began his representation. 

Counsel said that Petitioner never indicated that he did not remember what had happened 

with the victim; to the contrary, Petitioner “was very firm and very solid on what 

happened” and was always adamant that he acted in self-defense. 

Petitioner’s original trial counsel testified that she based her motion to suppress 

the statements on the fact that Petitioner was a non-native English speaker. Upon 

questioning by the post-conviction court, she testified that Petitioner talked to her of 

having acted in self-defense and that self-defense would have been the primary defense 

had she tried the case. She said Petitioner told her he had been drinking and said that 

some of the others were using cocaine, but they did not share it with him. She could not 

recall Petitioner’s having ever said that he was “highly intoxicated,” and Petitioner 

expressed no difficulty recalling the events of that day. 
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Petitioner testified that he was drinking and smoking crack cocaine throughout the 

time he was recreating at the river bottoms and that he was “high and intoxicated” that 

evening. He could not, however, recall if he informed either of his counsel of that fact. 

Petitioner’s appellate counsel testified that the petitioner’s statements to police 

were consistent with his trial testimony. 

On April 17, 2015, the post-conviction court entered a detailed written order 

denying the petition for post-conviction relief. Among other things, the court accredited 

trial counsel’s testimony while finding not credible Petitioner’s “weak testimony that he 

was intoxicated” and had wanted to use an intoxication defense. With respect to 

Petitioner’s claim that counsel was ineffective for not presenting an intoxication defense, 

the court specifically found that Petitioner “downplayed any intoxication on his part and 

did not give [trial counsel] any information that would have justified using the 

intoxication defense.” The court, therefore, concluded that Petitioner failed to establish 

that “counsel was ineffective for not pursuing an intoxication defense.” 

II. Analysis

In order to obtain post-conviction relief, a petitioner must show that his or her 

conviction or sentence is void or voidable because of the abridgment of a constitutional 

right. Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-30-103. The petitioner bears the burden of proving factual 

allegations in the petition for post-conviction relief by clear and convincing evidence. Id.

§ 40-30-110(f). Upon our review, the trial judge’s findings of fact are given the effect 

and weight of a jury verdict, and this Court is “bound by the trial judge’s findings of fact 

unless we conclude that the evidence contained in the record preponderates against the 

judgment entered in the cause.” Black v. State, 794 S.W.2d 752, 755 (Tenn. Crim. App.

1990). Thus, this Court will not reweigh or reevaluate the evidence below; all questions 

concerning the credibility of witnesses, the weight and value to be given their testimony 

and the factual issues raised by the evidence are to be resolved by the trial court judge, 

not the appellate courts. Momon v. State, 18 S.W.3d 152, 156 (Tenn. 1999); Henley v. 

State, 960 S.W.2d 572, 578-79 (Tenn. 1997). A trial court’s conclusions of law, 

however, are subject to a purely de novo review by this Court, with no presumption of 

correctness. Fields v. State, 40 S.W.3d 450, 457 (Tenn. 2001).

The right of a criminally accused to representation is guaranteed by both the Sixth 

Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 9, of the Tennessee 

Constitution. State v. White, 114 S.W.3d 469, 475 (Tenn. 2003); State v. Burns, 6 

S.W.3d 453, 461 (Tenn. 1999); Baxter v. Rose, 523 S.W.2d 930, 936 (Tenn. 1975). The 

following two-prong test directs a court’s evaluation of a claim for ineffectiveness:
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First, the [petitioner] must show that counsel’s performance was 

deficient. This requires showing that counsel made errors so serious that 

counsel was not functioning as the “counsel” guaranteed the [petitioner] by 

the Sixth Amendment. Second, the [petitioner] must show that the 

deficient performance prejudiced the defense. This requires showing that 

counsel’s errors were so serious as to deprive the [petitioner] of a fair trial, 

a trial whose result is reliable. Unless a [petitioner] makes both showings, 

it cannot be said that the conviction or death sentence resulted from a 

breakdown in the adversary process that renders the result unreliable.

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984); State v. Melson, 772 S.W.2d 417, 

419 (Tenn. 1989).

In reviewing a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, this court must determine 

whether the advice given or services rendered by the attorney are within the range of 

competence demanded of attorneys in criminal cases. Baxter, 523 S.W. 2d at 936. To 

prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, a petitioner must show that 

“counsel’s representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness.” House v. 

State, 44 S.W.3d 508, 515 (Tenn. 2001) (citing Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688).

When evaluating an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, the reviewing court 

should judge the attorney’s performance within the context of the case as a whole, taking 

into account all relevant circumstances. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690; State v. Mitchell, 

753 S.W.2d 148, 149 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1988). The reviewing court must evaluate the 

questionable conduct from the attorney’s perspective at the time. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 

690; Hellard v. State, 629 S.W.2d 4, 9 (Tenn. 1982). In doing so, the reviewing court 

must be highly deferential and “should indulge a strong presumption that counsel’s 

conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance.” Burns, 6 

S.W.3d at 462.

We conclude that the post-conviction court properly denied the petition for postconviction relief. Trial counsel’s testimony, which was accredited by the post-conviction 

court, was that Petitioner consistently downplayed his alcohol and drug usage and 

maintained throughout that he acted in self-defense. Petitioner, himself, could not recall 

whether he ever informed counsel that he was intoxicated at the time of the murder. In 

addition, the proof established that a significant amount of time elapsed between 

Petitioner’s drug and alcohol use and the murder. In sum, Petitioner failed to meet his 

burden of showing that counsel was deficient for not pursuing an intoxication defense 

and not requesting a jury instruction on intoxication. Accordingly, we affirm the 

judgment of the post-conviction court denying the petition.
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CONCLUSION

Having carefully reviewed the record and the parties’ briefs, we affirm the 

judgment of the post-conviction court. 

____________________________________________ 

THOMAS T. WOODALL, PRESIDING JUDGE