IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE

AT NASHVILLE

Assigned on Briefs February 9, 2016

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. SHUAN TERRELL MARSH

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Marshall County

No. 14-CR-63 Forest A. Durard, Jr., Judge

No. M2015-00848-CCA-R3-CD – Filed February 29, 2016

The defendant, Shuan Terrell Marsh,

1

appeals his Marshall County Circuit Court jury 

conviction of third offense possession of a controlled substance, claiming that the 

evidence was insufficient to support his conviction. Discerning no error, we affirm.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3; Judgment of the Circuit Court Affirmed

JAMES CURWOOD WITT, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which ALAN E.

GLENN and ROBERT L. HOLLOWAY,JR., JJ., joined.

Cynthia M. Fort, Nashville, Tennessee (on appeal and at trial); and Jay Norman, 

Nashville, Tennessee (at trial), for the appellant, Shuan Terrell Marsh.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Zachary T. Hinkle, Assistant 

Attorney General; Robert Carter, District Attorney General; and Andrew Lee Wright, 

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

OPINION

In August 2014, the Marshall County Circuit Court grand jury charged the 

defendant with one count of simple possession of marijuana. The trial court conducted a 

jury trial in February 2015.

The State’s proof at trial showed that on the afternoon of March 15, 2014, 

Captain Bart Fagen with the Marshall County Sheriff’s Department (“MCSD”) stopped a 

Kia vehicle driven by the defendant because the vehicle “had a dark tinted tag cover over 

the tag.” When Captain Fagen approached the defendant’s vehicle to explain the 

 

1

In the indictment, the defendant’s first name is spelled “Shuan.” Although it appears to be an 

erroneous spelling of the name “Shaun,” nothing in the record indicates that the indictment was amended. 

As is the policy of the court, we utilize the spelling contained in the indictment.
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violation, he recognized the smell of “burnt marijuana” emanating from the vehicle. 

Captain Fagen asked the defendant to step out of his vehicle and then inquired whether 

the defendant was in possession of any marijuana. The defendant responded that he had 

“a roach” or “a blunt” inside the middle console of the vehicle. The defendant then 

retrieved the object and handed it to Captain Fagen, who sealed it inside an evidence bag. 

Captain Fagen explained that the sealed evidence bag remained inside his patrol car from 

March 15 until July 29, at which time he gave the sealed bag to the MCSD evidence 

custodian, Jimmy Oliver.

Captain Fagen testified that another man occupied the front passenger seat 

of the defendant’s vehicle, but he could not recall the man’s name, and the man never 

claimed ownership of the marijuana.

Special Agent and forensic scientist Lela Jackson with the Tennessee 

Bureau of Investigation (“TBI”) testified that she processed the “hand-rolled cigarette 

butt” she received from Captain Fagen and that her testing revealed that the substance 

was marijuana. 

With this evidence, the State rested, and the defendant elected to testify.

The defendant testified that, when he was initially stopped on March 15, 

Captain Fagen mentioned nothing about the smell of marijuana. The defendant provided 

the officer with his license and registration, and Captain Fagen returned to his patrol car 

with those items. When Captain Fagen approached the defendant’s vehicle to return the 

paperwork, he asked the defendant to step out of the vehicle, and, at that time, he “sa[id] 

something . . . about the smell of marijuana.” The defendant denied reaching into the 

vehicle’s console and producing a marijuana cigarette, and he denied ever smoking 

marijuana in his vehicle. The defendant did admit that he had smoked marijuana on prior 

occasions and that he smoked marijuana “[m]aybe once” during the week of the trial. 

The defendant conceded that he had signed the citation he received for possession of 

marijuana, but he insisted that he did not read the citation before signing it and that he 

believed it was simply a citation for the illegal tag cover.

Based on this evidence, the jury convicted the defendant as charged of 

simple possession of marijuana. Following subsequent deliberations, the jury found the 

defendant guilty of third offense possession of a controlled substance. The trial court 

then sentenced the defendant to serve three years and six months in the department of 

correction.
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Following the denial of his timely motion for new trial, the defendant filed 

a timely notice of appeal. In this appeal, the defendant contends only that the evidence is 

insufficient to support his conviction. We disagree. 

We review the defendant’s claim of insufficient evidence mindful that our 

standard of review is whether, after considering 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. Tenn. R. App. P. 13(e); Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 

307, 319 (1979); State v. Winters, 137 S.W.3d 641, 654 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2003). This 

standard applies to findings of guilt based upon direct evidence, circumstantial evidence, 

or a combination of direct and circumstantial evidence. State v. Dorantes, 331 S.W.3d 

370, 379 (Tenn. 2011).

When examining the sufficiency of the evidence, this court should neither 

re-weigh the evidence nor substitute its inferences for those drawn by the trier of fact. Id. 

Questions concerning the credibility of the witnesses, the weight and value of the 

evidence, as well as all factual issues raised by the evidence are resolved by the trier of 

fact. State v. Cabbage, 571 S.W.2d 832, 835 (Tenn. 1978). Significantly, this court must 

afford the State the strongest legitimate view of the evidence contained in the record as 

well as all reasonable and legitimate inferences which may be drawn from the evidence. 

Id.

As charged in this case, “[i]t is an offense for a person to knowingly 

possess or casually exchange a controlled substance.” T.C.A. § 39-17-418(a). Marijuana 

is classified as a Schedule VI controlled substance, see T.C.A. § 39-17-415(a)(1), and 

“[a] violation under this section is a Class E felony where the person has two (2) or more 

prior convictions under this section.” T.C.A. § 39-17-418(e). 

In the instant case, the proof at trial established that Captain Fagen, upon 

stopping the defendant for a traffic violation, detected the smell of marijuana inside the 

defendant’s vehicle. When Captain Fagen asked the defendant if he was in possession of 

any marijuana, the defendant responded in the affirmative and provided Captain Fagen 

with a small cigarette butt which had been located inside the vehicle’s console. Testing 

of this cigarette butt by the TBI revealed that it contained marijuana. Although the 

defendant denied ownership of the marijuana cigarette butt and denied providing the 

same to Captain Fagen, such matters of witness credibility and evidentiary weight are 

within the exclusive province of the trier of fact, and this court will not reweigh such 

evidence. See Dorantes, 331 S.W.3d at 379.
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Viewing this evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, we 

hold that the evidence adduced at trial sufficiently established the defendant’s conviction 

of third offense possession of a controlled substance.

Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

_________________________________ 

JAMES CURWOOD WITT, JR., JUDGE