IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE

AT KNOXVILLE

May 22, 2018 Session

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. QUINCY D. SCOTT

Appeal from the Criminal Court for McMinn County

No. 2014-CR-331 Sandra Donaghy, Judge

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No. E2017-01416-CCA-R3-CD

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Defendant, Quincy D. Scott, appeals his conviction for aggravated robbery for which he 

was sentenced to seventeen years as a Range II, multiple offender at 85%. On appeal, 

Defendant contends that the cumulative effect of various errors at trial entitled him to a 

new trial. Upon reviewing the record and the applicable law, we affirm the judgment of 

the trial court.

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

THOMAS T. WOODALL, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which JOHN EVERETT 

WILLIAMS, and ROBERT W. WEDEMEYER, JJ., joined.

Ashley L. Ownby, Cleveland, Tennessee, (on appeal) and Donald Leon Shahan, Jr., 

Assistant Public Defender (at trial), for the appellant, Quincy D. Scott.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Katherine C. Redding, Assistant 

Attorney General; Stephen D. Crump, District Attorney General; and Dorothy Cherry and 

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

OPINION

The evidence presented at trial established that on June 28, 2014, Defendant 

entered a Check Into Cash and informed Felicia Braham, the assistant manager, that he 

needed a loan. As Ms. Braham was questioning Defendant about the loan, he pulled a 

piece of a black stretchy material over his face, brandished a gun, and demanded money. 

Defendant took more than $3,300 in cash and fled. 

Lisa Raby, the manager, was in the parking lot and saw a man leave the store and 

place a gun in the back of his pants. A black truck drove into the parking lot, and the 

man entered on the passenger side. Ms. Raby attempted to follow the truck but lost sight 

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of it in traffic. She was not able to identify the individual with the gun in a photographic 

line-up.

Initially, Ms. Braham was unable to identify the perpetrator in a photographic lineup that did not include Defendant. On July 10, 2014, while investigating an accident 

during which the driver fled the scene, Detective Josh Rhodes initiated a traffic stop of a 

truck that he described as so dark blue that it appeared to be black. Larry Moore, who 

was the focus of an ongoing bank robbery investigation, was the driver, and Defendant 

was a passenger. Detective Rhodes allowed Defendant and Mr. Moore to leave once the 

detective received information that they were not involved in the accident. While 

speaking to Defendant, Detective Rhodes realized that Defendant matched the description 

of a suspect that the detective received in a be-on-the-lookout alert. Detective Rhodes 

provided Defendant’s information to Detective Jim Shaw, who prepared a photographic 

line-up that included Defendant’s photograph. Ms. Braham identified Defendant as the 

perpetrator in the photographic line-up and at trial.

After a warrant was issued for Defendant’s arrest, Detective Rhodes initiated a 

traffic stop of the same truck and spoke to Mr. Moore about Defendant’s location. 

Detective Rhodes arrested Defendant later that same day. Detective Rhodes also 

searched the truck and seized an “air soft type pistol” and magazine, a set of WalkieTalkies, a black “cinch sack” with rainbow colors on the reverse side, a Joker’s mask, and 

a black nylon “do-rag.” The “do-rag” included a DNA mixture of three individuals, and 

Defendant could not be excluded as a contributor.

Defendant presented the testimony of Dr. Jeffrey Neuschatz, an expert in cognitive 

psychology and eyewitness identification, regarding the factors that could have affected a

witness’s identification of a perpetrator and regarding problems with the photographic 

line-ups. Defendant also presented the testimony of Officer Michael Richmond, who 

responded to the scene and followed a black Chevrolet truck that he believed matched the 

description of the truck involved in the robbery. Officer Richmond’s description of the 

truck differed from the description offered by Ms. Raby at trial. Officer Richmond, 

however, lost contact with the truck. 

At the conclusion of the proof, the jury convicted Defendant of aggravated 

robbery. Following a sentencing hearing, the trial court sentenced Defendant to 

seventeen years as a Range II, multiple offender at 85%. This appeal followed.

ANALYSIS

Defendant maintains that he is entitled to relief based on the cumulative error 

doctrine. Our supreme court has recognized the cumulative error doctrine as a “judicial 
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recognition that there may be multiple errors committed in trial proceedings, each of 

which in isolation constitutes mere harmless error, but which when aggregated, have a 

cumulative effect on the proceedings so great as to require reversal in order to preserve a 

defendant’s right to a fair trial.” State v. Hester, 324 S.W.3d 1, 76 (Tenn. 2010) 

(citations omitted). The State maintains that Defendant waived this issue by failing to 

raise it in his motion for new trial. See Tenn. R. App. P. 3(e); State v. Korie Bates, No. 

W2004-00686-CCA-R3-CD, 2005 WL 1215963, at *8 (Tenn. Crim. App. May 20, 2005) 

(holding that the defendant waived his cumulative error argument by failing to raise it in 

his motion for new trial). Regardless, “[t]o warrant assessment under the cumulative 

error doctrine, there must have been more than one actual error committed in the trial 

proceedings.” Hester, 324 S.W.3d at 77 (citations omitted).

Defendant argues that “there were numerous errors in the admission of evidence, 

all of which were related to the State’s seizures of items from the truck belonging to 

Larry Moore in which [Defendant] had been a passenger weeks after the robbery.” 

Defendant also challenges the “numerous discrepancies in the evidence,” the admission 

of photographs and other evidence of items seized from the truck, the admission of 

testimony that Mr. Moore was a suspect in another robbery, and the trial court’s denial of 

a new trial based on Detective Rhodes’s dismissal from his law enforcement position due 

to claims of misconduct. As the State notes in its brief, Defendant identifies in his brief 

what he believes to be errors but fails to set forth any basis or substantive contentions to 

support his claims of error, fails to cite to any authority relevant to establishing an 

individual error, and fails to provide any reasoning as to why his claims require relief. 

During oral argument, Defendant’s counsel acknowledged that he reviewed the State’s 

brief in which the State asserted that Defendant waived his claims due to an inadequate 

brief shortly after the State filed its brief. However, counsel chose not to file a reply brief 

correcting the deficiencies. 

We note that the appellate record in this case is extensive. The parties filed 

numerous pretrial motions and made numerous objections throughout the trial that 

necessitated bench conferences and jury-out hearings. We decline to scour the record in 

an attempt to ascertain any relevant discussion regarding Defendant’s claims; any 

argument that Defendant may have made before, during, and after trial challenging the 

trial court’s decisions; the basis upon which the trial court rendered its decisions; and any 

other information that might support Defendant’s claims of error. In other words, we 

decline to do Defendant’s work for him when he was on notice of the State’s argument of 

an insufficient brief and he failed to take any corrective action despite having an 

opportunity to do so. Rather, we agree with the State that Defendant has waived his 

claims of individual errors due to inadequate briefing. See Tenn. Ct. Crim. App. R. 10(b) 

(“Issues which are not supported by argument, citation to authorities, or appropriate 

references to the record will be treated as waived in this court”); see also Tenn. R. App. 
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P. 27(a)(7)(A) (requiring that an appellate brief contain an argument “setting forth the 

contentions of the appellant with respect to the issues presented, and the reasons therefor, 

including the reasons why the contentions require appellate relief, with citations to the 

authorities and appropriate references to the record”). Because Defendant has failed to 

establish any individual error, he is not entitled to relief based on the cumulative error 

doctrine.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

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THOMAS T. WOODALL, JUDGE