### IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT KNOXVILLE Assigned on Briefs S eptember 25, 2001
STATE OF TENNESSEE v. TIMOTHY C LARK NEWSON
Appeal from the Criminal Court for Hamilton County No. 225062 Douglas A. Meyer, Judge

No. E2001-00974-CCA-R3-CD October 10, 2001

The defendant, Timoth

y Clark New

son, appeals fro

m his c on viction fo r aggravated ki dnapping, contesting the sufficiency of the evidence. We affir m the judgment of conviction. Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Criminal Court Affirmed

J OSEPH M. T IPTON , J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which J OE G. R ILEY and A LAN E. G LENN , JJ., joined.

Brenda G. Siniard (on appe

al) and Keith A. B la c k (at trial), Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the appellant, Timothy Clark Newson.

Paul G. Summers, Attorney General an d Re porter; Mark A. F

ulks, Assistant Attor

ney Gener

al; William H. Cox, III, District Attorney General; and Dean C . Ferraro , Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.
OPINION

T he defend ant was convicted by a Hamilton County Criminal Court jury for aggravated kidnappin g, a Class B felony, and assault, a Class A misdemeanor. The trial court sentenced him
as a violent offender to twelve years in the Tennessee Department of Correction for the aggravated kid nappi ng conviction. He re ceived a concur

rent sentence of

eleven months, twe

nty-nine da

ys in the workhouse for the assault conviction. The defendant contends that the evidence is insufficient to support his convic tion for aggra vated kidn apping.

The victim, Tarashenda Harris, testified that in 1998, she and the defendant dated for

three to four months. She said that she ended their relationshi

p because he wa

s physically

and mentally abusive. She said that the defendant kept calling her and “coming around.” She s aid that on September

9, 1998, she got home about 8:30 p.m. and that as s he was opening the door to her apartment, the defendant approached her from behind. She said t ha t the defendant grabbed her, pushed her

into the apartmen

t, and jerked a te

lephone line out of

the wall. She said

that about 9:30-2-

p.m., her pager went off and that the defendant heard it and began hitting her. She said that he told her that he was tired of

people calling and paging her. She said that she tried to go into her bed

room, w here she had another telephone, but that the defendant pulled her hair and jerked her bac kward

. She stated that the defendant put her in the bedroom, took

the telephone in the bedroom off the hook, calledher nasty names, and hit her twice on the left side of her face with his fist. She said that she screamed and tr

ied to get out of the bedroom but that she could not overpower him. She said that the defendant

made her lie down onthe bed and that he sat on her legs. She said that he told her that if she kept trying to get away , he was going to kill her

. She said that she asked the defendant if she could use the bathroom, b

ut he told her to go

in the bed. She said that

the defendan t sat on her legs all night and continued to abuse her physically and mentally.

The victim testified that the next morning, the defendant let her go to the bathroom. She said that the defendant went into the bathroom with her and stoodover her. She said he got a clothes iron that had been in the ha

llway and hi

ther in the head with it. She said he kicked her on the left side of her face. She sa

id that the defend

ant kept say

ing that he was g

oing to kill her an

d that if he could not have her, no one could have her. She sai

d that the defenda

nt left her apar

tment about 9:30 a.m

. to go to his child support serv ices appointment.

She said that before he left, the defendant threatened to tie her up, put her

in the closet, and c

ome back and kill he

r later. She said

that after the defendant left, she called her mother, and her mother took her to the hospital. She said that she got to the hospital about 10:00 a.m. and that someone there called the police. She said that her head and left eye were swollen and that she had an ear injury. She said that she moved out of her apartment that day and moved in with her mother.

On cross-examination, the victim acknowledged that her hospital records stated that she was admitted at 1:49 p.m. on September 10, 1998. However, she said that she arrived at the hospital at 10:00 a.m. and that she was in the x-ray room. She said that after she finished with the x-rays, she talked to the police. She d enied telling the

poli ce that the defendant used a key to get into her apartment. Defense counse l also asked the vic

tim to explain an affidavit of complaint that she signed
on September 11, 1998, which states, “On 9-10-98 around 1 a .m. Timoth y C. Newson attacked Tarashenda

Harris. Ms. Harris was standingoutside her home talking to another individual when Mr. Newson walked up and gr abbed her, forc

ing her into her a

partment. . . . Mr. N

ewson le f t around 12:30 p.m. on 9-10-9 8.” At this point, Ms. Harris’s testimony became unclear. She testified that although she looked over the affidavit and signed it, someone else completed it for her. At first, she said that she did not recall saying that she was outside talking to someone when the defendant grabbed her. Later, she said that she might remember ma king that statement because people were walking d own th e street. She stated that she did not recall saying that the defendant lef t her apartment at 12:30 p.m. She said that she might have her times confused.

Noreen Jacks , the victim ’s mother testified as follows: Although the victim and the defendant had lived together, they were not living together whe n this incident occurred. At 9:30 p.m. on September

9, 1998, Ms. Jacks tried to call her daughter on the telephone. The line was busy, but Ms. Jacks was not concerne

d because the victim liked to talk on the telephone. Ms. Jacks tried to ca ll her daughter a few more t imes befo re she we nt to bed, b

ut the line

was alway

s busy. The next-3-

morning, Ms. Jacks tried to call her daughter but could not get in touch wi

th her. Alarmed,

Ms. Jacks walked down the street to the victim’s apartment. Seeingno one there, she thought that the victim was still asleep, and she returned home. At 9:30 a.m., the victim telephoned her mother, and Ms. Jacks went to the victim’s apartment. The victim was black and blue, her mouth was bleeding, she had scratches on her arm, and her eyes were red. The victim had been cr ying and was

a nervous wreck. Ms. Jacks took her daughter to the hospital instead of calling the police because the vic

tim
was “in terrible shap

e.” Although the

swelling in the vic

tim’ s face went down

that day , the next morning, the victim’s left eye was swollen shut, and it remained that way for about a month. The victim moved in with h

er and experienc

ed nightmares a

s a result of the inc

ident.

Officer Karl Lewis

from the Chattanooga Police Department testified that he was dispatched to the Memorial Hospital Emergency Room and that he interviewed the victim. He s aid that th e victim complained that her ear hurt and that her ear was red and swollen. H

e said that the victim told him the defendant

had stomped on her head with his foot and that her ear injury appeare d to match that abuse. He said tha

t the victim’s left e

ye was swoll

en shut a nd blood was in her right eye. Officer Lewis said that he placed a “be on the lookout” (BOLO) call for the defendant. He said that
a few minutes later, another off icer arreste d the defend ant at the ch ild suppo rt services building. On cross-examination, Officer Le wis said that he could not recall what time he arrived at the hospital but that he was there for an hour to an hour and a half. He said that he left the hospital and arrived at the child suppor

t services building

about 2:15 p.m.

The defendant contends that the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction for aggravated

kidnapping. He a

rgues that the vi

ctim’s pretrial st

atementswere so inconsistent with her trial testimony that the jury should have discredited her testimony

. In a ddition, he argues that the jury’s verdicts were in

consistent. The state

argues t hat the ev idence wa

s suffici ent. We agree with the state.

Our stan dard of revie

w when the suffic

iency of the

evidence is ques

tioned on appeal 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, 99 S. Ct. 2781, 2789 (1979). We do not reweigh the evidence but presume that the jury has resolved

all conflicts in the testimony and drawn all reasonable inferences from the evidence in favor of the state. See State v. Sheffield , 676 S.W.2d 542, 547 (Tenn. 1984); Statev. Cabbage , 571 S.W.2d 832, 835 (T enn. 1978). Quest

ions about witn

ess credibil

ity were resolved by the jury. See State v. Bland , 958 S.W.2d 651, 659 (Tenn. 1997). Aggravated

kidnapping is defined as fa lse impr isonment committed “ [w]ith the intent to inflictserious bodily injury on or to terrorize the victim or another[.]” Tenn

. Code Ann. § 39-13-304(a)(3). False imprisonment is accomplished when one “knowingly removes or confine s another unlawfully s

o as to interfere

substantially

with the other’s lib

erty .” Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-302(a).-4-

We believe th at the evid ence is suff icient to s upport a con viction fo r aggravated ki dnapping. The evidence shows that the defendant confined the victim to her bed al l night by sitt ing on her legs and that he substantially interfered with the victim’s liberty by confining her to the bed against her will. In addition, the defendant struck the victim repeatedly, r efused to let her go to the bathroom, and threatened to kill her. Thus, the evidence suff iciently supports the jury’s finding that the defendant acted with the intent to terror ize the vic tim. We recognize that the victim’s pretrial stateme nts conf

lict with her trial

testimony. Ho

wever, the defe

ndant cross-exami

ned the victim about the inconsistencies, and the jury chose to believe the victim’s testimony. Therefore, viewed in the light most fa

vorable to the sta

te, the evidence

is sufficient.
Relative to inconsistent verdicts, the defendant argues that because the jury f ound him not gu ilty on Count 2 of the aggravated kidnapping indictment, which requires that the victim suffer bodily injury, but found

him guilty on Count

1 of the indictment for assault, which requires that the victim suffer bodily injury, the jury ’s verdicts are inconsistent. He concludes that the jury did not properly follow the law and the instructions of the court in convicting him of aggravated ki dnapping. We disagree. The evidence r e flects that the de

fendant terror

ized the victim so as t

o commit aggravated

kidnapping. We will not “upset a s eemingly i

nconsistent verdi

ct by specu

lating as to

the jury’s reasoning if we are satisfied that the

evidence estab

lishes guilt

of the offense upon which the conviction was returned.” Wiggins v. State , 498 S.W.2d 92, 94 (Te

nn. 1973). Such is the

case before us.

Based upon the foregoing and the record as a whole, we affirm the judgment of conviction.

___________________________________ JOSEPH M. TIPTON, JUDGE