IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE

AT KNOXVILLE

May 21, 2024 Session

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. JOHN EDWARD GRAHAM

Appeal from the Criminal Court for Knox County

No. 120164 Steven Wayne Sword, Judge

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No. E2023-01066-CCA-R3-CD

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A Knox County jury convicted Defendant of Class E felony theft of property valued at 

more than $1,000 but less $2,500. Defendant claims that the evidence was insufficient to 

sustain the conviction and that the trial court erred in denying Defendant the right to enter 

relevant evidence. Following our review, we determine that the evidence was sufficient 

for the jury to find Defendant guilty and that the trial court properly excluded the evidence 

because it was not properly authenticated. We affirm the judgment of the trial court. 

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

ROBERT L. HOLLOWAY, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which JAMES 

CURWOOD WITT, JR., and TIMOTHY L. EASTER, JJ., joined.

Daniel L. Bell, Knoxville, Tennessee, for the appellant, John Edward Graham.

Jonathan Skrmetti, Attorney General and Reporter; Christian N. Clase, Assistant Attorney 

General; Charme P. Allen, District Attorney General; and Randall Kilby, Assistant District 

Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

Procedural History

On December 17, 2020, a warrant was issued charging Defendant with “theft of 

truck parts, over the value of $1,000 but less than $2,500.” The case was bound over to 

the grand jury on August 30, 2021. The Knox County Grand Jury returned an indictment 

on a single count of theft on December 1, 2021. Defendant was tried by jury on November 

21, 2022.

06/21/2024
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Jury Trial

Paula Mayes testified that she and her husband owned a 1997 Dodge Ram 2500 

pickup truck (“the Ram 2500”). She bought the Ram 2500 at the estate auction of her late 

cousin in 2005. Her husband used the truck in his house moving business. She said that 

the Ram 2500 had a green and silver special-ordered factory paint scheme and detail 

striping that matched the camper mounted on the bed. In June 2019, she took the Ram 

2500 to Tennessee College of Applied Technology on Liberty Street in Knoxville for the 

school’s students to work on the transmission. After receiving a call from someone at the 

school in early December 2019, Ms. Mayes went to the college to look at the Ram 2500. 

She said multiple parts, including the hood, the grille, and the battery had been removed 

from the Ram 2500. While at the college, Ms. Mayes was shown a video recording taken 

by the college’s security camera. Ms. Mayes said that the video showed “a white van 

coming in, pulling up to my truck, taking the parts off, sticking them in the van and the van

driving off.” Ms. Mayes said that the video was “real grainy” and that she could not 

identify anyone in the video. Ms. Mayes contacted the Knoxville Police Department

(“KPD”). She prepared a list of the parts and made photographs of the Ram 2500. She 

obtained a $2,555.36 estimate from Jim Cogdill Dodge to replace the missing parts. The

estimate for the hood alone was $1,095.00.

As a result of a telephone call from a student at the school, Ms. Mayes looked at a 

Facebook Marketplace page that had an ad for a Dodge truck for sale. She said that the 

truck in the picture was “small and red in color, but that it had her ‘big old green hood on 

it.’” She called the telephone number listed in the Facebook ad and obtained permission 

to go to look at the truck on December 13, 2019. She and her stepson, Bradley Mayes,

went to the address she had been provided by the Facebook seller, which turned out to be 

Defendant’s home. She said that the hood was too big for the truck and was held in place 

by bungee cords. She said that Mr. Mayes asked Defendant where he got the hood because 

it did not match. Defendant said he bought the hood at “Pull A Part.” Mr. Mayes told 

Defendant that the hood came from his dad’s Ram 2500 and that they were going to call 

the police. Ms. Mayes contacted KPD. Several photographs of the Mayes’ Ram 2500 and 

Defendant’s Dodge Ram 1500 (“the Ram 1500”) were introduced into evidence.

Bradley Mayes testified that he was very familiar with the Ram 2500 and that it had 

a very distinctive two-tone custom paint and pinstripe. He said that he was 100% certain 

that the hood on the Ram 1500 came off the Mayes’s Ram 2500. He also said that he 

recognized an obvious dent in the hood and that the grille had scratch marks that matched 

the scratch marks on the hood of the Ram 2500. He said that the parts were stolen from 

the Ram 2500 around December 5 or 6, 2019. Mr. Mayes testified that Pull A Part did not 

purchase car parts from individuals but rather purchased entire vehicles and sold the parts.
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KPD Officer Christopher Glenn Ott said that he was contacted by Ms. Mayes. Ms. 

Mayes sent him a picture of the Ram 2500 before the parts were removed and provided 

him with the web address for the Facebook Marketplace page, which had a picture of a

truck for sale. Officer Ott said that the custom pinstripe on the hood can be seen in both 

pictures of the Ram 2500 and the Ram 1500. Officer Ott and his partner went to 

Defendant’s house on December 17, 2019, and examined the Ram 1500. He said it was 

obvious that “the hood was not meant” for the Ram 1500. Officer Ott said that Defendant 

claimed he had a receipt from Pull A Part where he bought the hood but was unable to 

produce the receipt. Officer Ott stated that there were also two Kroger shopping carts in 

Defendant’s garage. He told Defendant that he was in possession of stolen property and

that he was going to do additional investigation, and he instructed Defendant not to sell the 

property. 

Michelle Lamb testified that she had been romantically involved with Defendant for 

five years. She said Defendant had fixed up and sold one vehicle before he had started 

working on the Ram 1500. She said that the Ram 1500 was operational when he bought it

but that it needed a hood, a radiator, and a few other parts. Defendant would buy parts 

from friends or parts stores. She said he purchased the hood in November or December

2019 from Jason Sutton. Mr. Sutton lived with Defendant and Ms. Lamb.

When police officers arrived to investigate, they first spoke to Mr. Sutton because 

he was outside. Mr. Sutton told Defendant to come outside because the police wanted to 

talk to him. Ms. Lamb said that the police left after speaking to Defendant, but they 

returned to arrest Defendant about a week later. She said Mr. Sutton gave Defendant a 

receipt after Defendant was arrested. Ms. Lamb never told the police that Defendant 

bought the hood from Mr. Sutton. She said that Defendant paid “about fifty bucks” for the 

hood and that she thought the hood came from Pull A Part because Mr. Sutton “used to go 

there all the time.” Ms. Lamb admitted that she pled guilty to two counts of misdemeanor 

theft on July 9, 2013, and to one additional count of misdemeanor theft on July 24, 2013.

Defendant testified that he had been convicted “a few times of burglary.” He said 

that his last conviction was for aggravated burglary in 2010 and that he “flattened [his]

time out in 2017.” He volunteered that he had been arrested once for misdemeanor 

possession of drugs since 2017. Defendant said that he traded a dirt bike for the Ram 1500 

about two or three months before he was arrested and that he was fixing it up “a little bit 

at a time.” He said that the Ram 1500 needed a water pump, a “freeze-out plug,” and a 

hood. He stated that Mr. Sutton helped him fix the water pump and told him that he “might 

have a hood.” He said that Mr. Sutton came back with a hood. Defendant said that, “after 

the police came[,]” he asked Mr. Sutton where he got the hood and that Mr. Sutton told 

him that “he bought it at Pull A Part and provided [Defendant] a receipt.” 
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Defendant said that he had known Mr. Sutton since elementary school and that Mr. 

Sutton was living with him at the time of Defendant’s arrest. Defendant said that he and 

Mr. Sutton “had a falling out, kind of, over this.” He claimed that he had been trying to 

locate Mr. Sutton for a year and that he did not currently know the location of Mr. Sutton. 

Defendant sought to introduce as evidence a receipt from Pull A Part issued to Mr. 

Sutton for a hood. Defendant claimed that Mr. Sutton gave him the receipt approximately 

a week after the police initially came to Defendant’s house. The State objected to the 

introduction of the receipt on the grounds that it was not properly authenticated. Following 

a jury-out hearing, the trial court found that no business record custodian from Pull A Part 

was present to authenticate the receipt as a business record and that Mr. Sutton, whose 

name was on the receipt, was not present to testify. The court noted that the receipt said 

“June” 2019 and did not describe the hood. The court determined that the receipt was not 

properly authenticated and sustained the State’s objection.

1

Defendant denied that the officers told him not to sell the truck. He said they only 

“suggested” that he not sell the truck. He said that he sold the truck two days after the 

police initially came to his house because he needed money to buy Christmas presents for 

his children. 

On cross-examination, Defendant agreed that he had been convicted of aggravated 

burglary on April 5, 2010, September 28, 2010, and December 6, 2013.

The jury found Defendant guilty of the charged offense. 

Sentence

Following a sentencing hearing, the trial court found that Defendant was a Range II 

multiple offender and sentenced him to four years, suspended to supervised probation after 

the service of sixty days in the county jail. The court ordered Defendant to pay $1,861.36 

in restitution at the rate of $50.00 per month. The trial court denied Defendant’s motion 

for new trial, and Defendant timely appealed.

Analysis

Defendant claims that the evidence was insufficient to prove he committed theft of 

property, arguing that “the mere possession of allegedly stolen property is, in of itself, not 

enough to establish his guilt[.]” Defendant also submits that the trial court “erred in 

denying Defendant the right to enter relevant evidence at trial.” The State claims that the 

 

1 The record on appeal does not contain a copy of the receipt.
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evidence was sufficient to sustain the conviction and that the court did not abuse its 

discretion by excluding the unauthenticated receipt from the evidence at trial. We agree 

with the State.

Sufficiency of the Evidence

Our standard of review for a sufficiency of the evidence challenge 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) (emphasis in original); see also Tenn. R. 

App. P. 13(e). Questions of fact, the credibility of witnesses, and weight of the evidence 

are resolved by the fact finder. State v. Bland, 958 S.W.2d 651, 659 (Tenn. 1997). This 

court will not reweigh the evidence. Id. Our standard of review “is the same whether the 

conviction is based upon direct or circumstantial evidence.” State v. Dorantes, 331 S.W.3d 

370, 379 (Tenn. 2011) (quoting State v. Hanson, 279 S.W.3d 265, 275 (Tenn. 2009)) 

(internal quotation marks omitted).

A guilty verdict removes the presumption of innocence, replacing it with a 

presumption of guilt. Bland, 958 S.W.2d at 659; State v. Tuggle, 639 S.W.2d 913, 914 

(Tenn. 1982). The defendant bears the burden of proving why the evidence was 

insufficient to support the conviction. Bland, 958 S.W.2d at 659; Tuggle, 639 S.W.2d at 

914. On appeal, the “State must be afforded the strongest legitimate view of the evidence 

and all reasonable inferences that may be drawn therefrom.” State v. Vasques, 221 S.W.3d 

514, 521 (Tenn. 2007). 

A person commits theft of property “if, with the intent to deprive the owner of 

property, the person knowingly obtains or exercises control over the property without the

owner’s effective consent.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-14-103(a). In State v. James, 315 

S.W.3d 440, 450-51 (Tenn. 2010), our supreme court discussed in the context of jury 

instructions that possession of recently stolen property permitted an inference of theft. Our 

supreme court noted that

the inference of guilty knowledge permitted by the possession of recently 

stolen property predates our current theft of property statute . . . . There is no 

difference between the actual larceny and either receiving or concealing the 

stolen property. Thus, the inference of knowledge that the property was 

stolen from the possession of recently stolen property is particularly suited 

to our current statute, and, in our view, the instruction by the trial court was 

proper as to the theft. 
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Id. Accordingly, Defendant’s argument that possession of stolen property does not permit 

an inference of guilt as to theft is not well-taken. 

In addition, Defendant’s possession of the stolen hood was not the only evidence 

the jury considered. Ms. Mayes testified that she purchased the Ram 2500 from the estate 

auction of her late cousin’s property and that her husband used the Ram 2500 in his 

business. Ms. Mayes testified that she obtained an estimate of $2,555.36 to replace the 

missing parts, which showed that the hood was valued at $1,095. She testified that she did 

not give Defendant permission to remove parts from the Ram 2500. The evidence at trial 

also showed that a custom-painted hood that matched the paint scheme of the Ram 2500 

was attached by bungee cords to Defendant’s red Ram 1500. Two days after Officer Ott 

informed Defendant that the hood was stolen and instructed him not to sell the Ram 1500, 

Defendant, nevertheless, sold the Ram 1500. We note that Defendant and Ms. Lamb 

testified about Defendant’s having bought the hood from Mr. Sutton, but based upon its 

verdict, the jury clearly discredited this testimony. The evidence was sufficient for the jury 

to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Defendant was guilty of theft of property valued at 

more than $1,000 but less than $2,500. Defendant is not entitled to relief on this basis. 

Admissibility of the Receipt from Pull A Part

When a trial court makes an evidentiary ruling, the appropriate standard of review 

on direct appeal is “whether the record clearly demonstrates that the trial court abused its 

discretion in ruling the evidence inadmissible.” State v. McCaleb, 582 S.W.3d 179, 186 

(Tenn. 2019) (citing Regions Bank v. Thomas, 532 S.W.3d 330, 336 (Tenn. 2017); State v. 

Davis, 466 S.W.3d 49, 61 (Tenn. 2015)). In McCaleb, our supreme court explained:

We emphasize that the abuse of discretion standard of review does not permit 

an appellate court to substitute its judgment for that of the trial court. State 

v. Harbison, 539 S.W.3d 149, 159 (Tenn. 2018). Rather, “[b]ecause, by their 

very nature, discretionary decisions involve a choice among acceptable 

alternatives, reviewing courts will not second-guess a trial court’s exercise 

of its discretion simply because the trial court chose an alternative that the 

appellate courts would not have chosen.” White v. Vanderbilt Univ., 21 

S.W.3d 215, 223 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1999). Accordingly, if the reviewing court 

determines that “reasonable minds can disagree with the propriety of the 

decision,” the decision should be affirmed. Harbison, 539 S.W.3d at 159.

Id. A trial court abuses its discretion when it “applies an incorrect legal standard or reaches 

a conclusion that is ‘illogical or unreasonable and causes an injustice to the party 

complaining.’” State v. Plyant, 263 S.W.3d 854, 870 (Tenn. 2008) (citing State v. Ruiz, 

204 S.W.3d 772, 778 (Tenn. 2006)).
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In order for evidence to be admissible, it must be relevant. Tenn. R. Evid. 402. 

Evidence is relevant if it has “any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of 

consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would 

without the evidence.” Tenn. R. Evid. 401. 

Rule 901 of the Tennessee Rules of Evidence states that “[t]he requirement of 

authentication or identification as a condition precedent to admissibility is satisfied by 

evidence sufficient to the court to support a finding by the trier of fact that the matter in 

question is what its proponent claims.” Tenn. R. Evid. 901(a). Authentication can be 

accomplished through testimony of a witness with knowledge “that a matter is what it is 

claimed to be.” See id. 901(b)(1). “Once this foundation has been established, the ‘trier of 

fact then makes the ultimate decision of whether the item is actually what it purports to 

be.’” State v. Adkins, No. M2009-00528-CCA-R3-CD, 2010 WL 3489170, at *2 (Tenn. 

Crim. App. Aug. 25, 2010), perm. app. denied (Tenn. Jan 13, 2011) (quoting Neil P. Cohen 

et al., Tennessee Law of Evidence § 9.01[2][a] (5th ed. 2005)). “Section (a) makes the trial 

judge the arbiter of authentication issues[.]” Tenn. R. Evid. 901, Advisory Commission 

Cmts.; see also State v. Mickens, 123 S.W.3d 355, 376 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2003).

The alleged receipt from Pull A Part was issued to Mr. Sutton, not to Defendant. 

Mr. Sutton did not testify at trial. The receipt was not authenticated as a business record. 

The receipt is not self-authenticating under Tennessee Rule of Evidence 902. The receipt 

did not describe the characteristics of the hood sold and was dated in June 2019, 

approximately six months before the hood was removed from the Ram 2500. The trial 

court found that the receipt was not properly authenticated and acted well within its 

discretion when it granted the State’s motion to exclude the receipt from evidence. We 

note that the trial court permitted Ms. Lamb and Defendant to testify about the receipt and 

that the jury rejected Defendant’s assertion that he legitimately purchased the hood. 

Accordingly, even if the receipt had been erroneously excluded, the error would have been 

harmless. Defendant is not entitled to relief on this basis.

Conclusion

The evidence is sufficient to support Defendant’s conviction, and the trial court 

properly excluded the receipt from evidence. The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

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ROBERT L. HOLLOWAY, JR., JUDGE