IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE

AT JACKSON

Assigned on Briefs October 4, 2011

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. DEMETURUS ALEXANDER1

Direct Appeal from the Criminal Court for Shelby County

No. 10-01045 John T. Fowlkes, Jr., Judge

No. W2010-02675-CCA-R3-CD - Filed January 6, 2012

The defendant, Demeturus Alexander, was convicted of aggravated robbery, a Class B

felony, by a ShelbyCountyCriminal Court jury and sentenced to ten years in the Department

of Correction. On appeal, he challenges the sufficiency of the convicting evidence. After

review, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. 

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

ALAN E. GLENN,J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which JOSEPH M. TIPTON, P.J., and

JAMES CURWOOD WITT, JR., J., joined.

Stephen C. Bush, District Public Defender; and Harry E. Sayle, III (on appeal) and Dianne

M. Thackery (at trial), Assistant Public Defenders, for the appellant, Demeturus Alexander.

Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter; Meredith Devault, Senior Counsel;

Amy P. Weirich, District Attorney General; and Garland Erguden and Glenda Adams,

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

OPINION

FACTS

This cases arises out of the robbery of the victim, Stephen Moorman, a Domino’s

Pizza delivery driver, at gunpoint on July 10, 2009. As a result, the defendant was indicted

on one count of aggravated robbery.

The indictment lists the defendant’s name as “Demeturus McClain, also known as Demeturus

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Alexander.” The defendant filed a motion to amend or redact the indictment to eliminate the name of

Demeturus McClain, which the trial court granted.
The State’s first witness at trial was the victim, who testified that he was working as

a delivery driver for the Domino’s Pizza on Union Avenue in Memphis on July 10, 2009,

when he was called to make a delivery to 308 Pontotoc Avenue close to midnight. As he was

driving to the address, approaching some one-story apartments down the side of that street,

two young men outside the apartments started waving him down. He called the phone

number on the delivery ticket to make sure the two men were the ones who ordered the food.

One of the men answered the phone, and the victim told him that he had their food. The men

approached the victim’s car, and the victim rolled down his window to inform them of the

total.

The victim testified that he was able to get a good look at both of the men and

described one as “shorter, light complected, [with] a white headband on, short hair. He had

a white like a basketball jersey on, white baggie shorts.” The other man was “slim, taller,

darker complected and he had [a] dark shirt on and dark shorts.” He identified the defendant

as one of the men – the taller, “five ten or so,” darker-complected man.

The victim testified that, when he handed them the ticket and asked for money, the

defendant put a gun to his head through the partially rolled down window. The victim

reiterated that the gun was held against his head and that the defendant was the one holding

the gun. The defendant told him to get out of the car, but the door was locked, the engine

was running, and he decided he “wasn’t getting out of the car.” The victim raised his arms,

and one of the men grabbed the cell phone out of his hand. The defendant’s companion then

hit him on the shoulder with a stun gun, stinging him and causing him to jump. As he

jumped, the defendant’s companion stung him again. The victim raised his arms and then

saw sparks everywhere. The victim assumed that the stun gun hit the metal on his car door.

The victim testified that the two men backed up, so he “hit [the] gas and took off.”

As he drove away, the victim had his head down so the men would not shoot at the back of

his car. He turned right on the first street he reached, Third Street, then drove onto Linden

Avenue. Once on Linden, the victim saw a “PST officer” standing on Beale Street, so he

pulled up and told the officer what had happened. The PST officer called the police, who

went to see if the two men were still in the area.

The victim testified that the gun the defendant held to his head was “very small, like

a [.]22,” and was a revolver. The victim stated that he “was scared to death” when the gun

was being held to his head and that the stun gun “hurt a lot.” He noted that the stun gun

made one side of his body numb for a day, with pain lasting for a week.

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The victim testified that, on the Sunday following the Friday night event, Sergeant

White with the Memphis Police Department called him to the police station to view a

photographic array of six pictures. The victim looked at the array and picked out the

defendant. He was sure of his identification. The victim circled the defendant’s picture on

the array and wrote that “this is the person that had the gun when I was robbed.” The victim

was also shown a second array to see if he could identify the defendant’s companion that

night, but the victim was unable to identify anyone in the second array. After he viewed the

photographic arrays, an officer showed him a cell phone that had been recovered, which the

victim identified as his own.

Detective Jonas Holguin with the Memphis Police Department testified that, on July

11, 2009, he was called to assist in investigating the robbery in this case and was instructed

to go to 3377 Guernsey Avenue. As Detective Holguin and five other officers were walking

up to the house at that address, they were met by a woman who gave them consent to search

her home. Detective Holguin searched the back area of the residence, where he found the

defendant sitting on a bed. He asked the defendant to stand up and, when the defendant did,

Detective Holguin observed a cell phone on the bed, “sticking out from where the pillow

was.” He asked the defendant to whom the cell phone belonged, and the defendant

responded that it was his. However, the defendant could not provide Detective Holguin with

the phone number for the phone. Detective Holguin dialed the victim’s phone number, and

the cell phone sitting next to the defendant rang. The defendant was then placed under arrest.

Detective Holguin explained that the victim’s cell phone provider had been able to pinpoint

the location of the victim’s phone to an approximate area that encompassed only the

residence they searched.

Lieutenant Kedzie White with the Memphis Police Department testified that he was

the lead investigator in the present case. Lieutenant White first came into contact with the

defendant on July 11, 2009, after he had been placed under arrest. The defendant was

advised of, and signed a form regarding, his Miranda rights. The officers conducted an oral

interview of the defendant but did not reduce it to writing because the defendant “was giving

[them] information that [they] knew was wrong or false” from their investigation.

Lieutenant White testified that, after the defendant was in custody, he had the victim

view a photographic array, from which the victim identified the defendant. The officers took

the victim’s statement and then arranged for a second visit with the defendant. After being

advised of his rights again, the defendant gave a statement to the officers. Lieutenant White

recalled that the defendant’s original story had been that he bought the victim’s cell phone

from a person named “Kee-Kee” around 8:30 p.m. the night of the incident. He also told the

officers that he knew the phone had been taken in a robbery of a pizza delivery driver.

However, when the defendant was later confronted with the facts the police had obtained

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from the victim and the circumstances they had learned regarding the case, the defendant

“recanted his original version of the story and modified it to place himself on the scene but

not as an active participant.” Lieutenant White recalled that the defendant

advised that he and a group of individuals were walking from the Foote Homes

and they hatched this idea to rob the pizza delivery guy. And that it was his

idea to do so . . . and to pick the location where it occurred because he knew

that the delivery drivers had made deliveries at that location before and he

knew that they wouldn’t come to the location where they had started.

In his written statement, the defendant admitted that he helped plan the robbery. He

said that he, Deangelo, and two other men walked to Pontotoc Avenue with the plan “to get

some money off the pizza man.” The defendant did not admit to having a gun and claimed

that he “was just sitting there” when Deangelo and another man approached the delivery

driver. He stated that he “took off running” when Deangelo “upped a gun.” He admitted to

receiving the phone stolen in the robbery.

After the conclusion of the proof, the jury convicted the defendant of aggravated

robbery as charged in the indictment.

ANALYSIS

Sufficiency of the Evidence

The defendant challenges the sufficiency of the convicting evidence, arguing that

there was insufficient proof of his identity as the man who robbed the victim at gunpoint.

He acknowledges that the proof could support a conviction for facilitation based on, as

asserted in his statement to police, that he “suggested a place for the pizza delivery,” or theft

of property less than $500 because he “obtained the cell phone with the knowledge that it

was obtained in a robbery.”

When the sufficiency of the evidence is challenged on appeal, the relevant question

of the reviewing court is “whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to

the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime

beyond a reasonable doubt.” Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979); see also Tenn.

R. App. P. 13(e) (“Findings of guilt in criminal actions whether by the trial court or jury shall

be set aside if the evidence is insufficient to support the findings by the trier of fact of guilt

beyond a reasonable doubt.”); State v. Evans, 838 S.W.2d 185, 190-92 (Tenn. 1992); State

v. Anderson, 835 S.W.2d 600, 604 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1992).

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All questions involving the credibility of witnesses, the weight and value to be given

the evidence, and all factual issues are resolved by the trier of fact. See State v. Pappas, 754

S.W.2d 620, 623 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1987). “A guilty verdict by the jury, approved by the

trial judge, accredits the testimony of the witnesses for the State and resolves all conflicts in

favor of the theory of the State.” State v. Grace, 493 S.W.2d 474, 476 (Tenn. 1973). Our

supreme court stated the rationale for this rule:

This well-settled rule rests on a sound foundation. The trial judge and

the jury see the witnesses face to face, hear their testimony and observe their

demeanor on the stand. Thus the trial judge and jury are the primary

instrumentality of justice to determine the weight and credibility to be given

to the testimony of witnesses. In the trial forum alone is there human

atmosphere and the totality of the evidence cannot be reproduced with a

written record in this Court.

Bolin v. State, 219 Tenn. 4, 11, 405 S.W.2d 768, 771 (1966) (citing Carroll v. State, 212

Tenn. 464, 370 S.W.2d 523 (1963)).

“A jury conviction removes the presumption of innocence with which a defendant is

initially cloaked and replaces it with one of guilt, so that on appeal a convicted defendant has

the burden of demonstrating that the evidence is insufficient.” State v. Tuggle, 639 S.W.2d

913, 914 (Tenn. 1982).

We conclude that the evidence, when viewed in the light most favorable to the State,

was sufficient to establish the defendant’s identity as one of the robbers. The identification

of a defendant as the perpetrator of a crime is a question of fact for the trier of fact to

determine from the evidence presented at trial. See State v. Strickland, 885 S.W.2d 85, 87

(Tenn. Crim. App. 1993). The identification testimony of the victim is sufficient, alone, to

support a conviction. Id. The victim testified that he was shown a photographic array of six

individuals from which he identified the defendant as “the person that had the gun when [he]

was robbed.” He said that he was sure of his identification. The victim also identified the

defendant in court. The jury, as was its prerogative, accredited the victim’s identification of

the defendant. Moreover, the jury chose, also as its prerogative, to discredit the defendant’s

assertion that he was only guilty of “suggest[ing] a place for the pizza delivery” and

receiving the stolen property. The evidence was sufficient to support the defendant’s

conviction.

CONCLUSION

Based on the foregoing authorities and reasoning, we affirm the judgment of the trial

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court.

_________________________________

ALAN E. GLENN, JUDGE

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