Opinion ID: 1057596
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Identification of Thing Tampered With

Text: We turn now to the question of whether the language of the statute requires the State to establish the exact thing with which the accused allegedly tampered. The provisions of the criminal code are to be construed according to the fair import of their terms. Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-11-104 (2006). This construction requires that we give [t]he words of the statute ... their ordinary and natural meaning, and we refer to dictionary definitions where appropriate. State v. Williams, 690 S.W.2d 517, 529 (Tenn. 1985); see also Logan, 973 S.W.2d at 282. Thing means an object or entity not precisely designated or capable of being designated. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 1226 (1986). Therefore, it is a vague word by definition. Consistent with the ordinary and natural meaning of thing, our evidence tampering statute makes no attempt to define it more precisely. In using the word thing, the statute creates criminal liability for tampering with any object or entity, even if it is not capable of precise designation. The rest of the statutory language supports this broad, generic construction of the word thing. As our Court of Criminal Appeals has previously explained, `[d]estroy' is a verb that means to ruin or put out of existence. For something to be destroyed within the context of T.C.A. § 39-16-503, its evidentiary value must be ruined. Logan, 973 S.W.2d at 282 (citations omitted). Similarly, conceal is a verb meaning to prevent disclosure or recognition of or to place out of sight. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 271 (1986). The verb alter means to make different without changing into something else. Id. Furthermore, the statute additionally requires that the tampering of a thing take place with intent to impair its ... availability as evidence. Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-16-503(a)(1). Where a person ruins, puts out of existence, prevents disclosure of, places out of sight, or makes different some thing and thereby carries out the person's intent to keep the thing from being available as evidence, then a person may succeed in getting rid of the thing altogether. In such cases, the State may be unable not just to recover the thing but also to identify exactly what thing was tampered with. Yet, this is the precise situation in which the statute imposes criminal liability. If the legislature had wanted to predicate liability for evidence tampering on the precise identification of the thing, it could have done so. Indeed, the criminal code contains very precise language in a number of other statutes, including various tampering statutes. For example, the road construction tampering statute prohibits, among other things, the intentional destruction or alteration on any state road or highway of letters and figures on a detour sign, warning sign, barricade, or fenceall defined within the section. Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-17-108(a) & (b)(1)(2) (2006). Elsewhere, the Code makes it a criminal offense to knowingly damage, destroy, remove or otherwise tamper with a residential mailbox or other container such person knows or reasonably should know is used for the receipt and deposit of United States mail. Id. § 39-14-412(a) (2006). Still another provision prohibits influencing the winning of a prize by tampering with lottery equipment or materials. Id. § 39-17-607 (2006). Indeed, in the section immediately following the provision at issue in this case, the Code prohibits the intentional destruction or concealment of a governmental record, a term expressly defined elsewhere. See id. §§ 39-11-106(15), 39-16-504 (2006 & Supp.2009). These examples show that, when the legislature wishes to be specific in identifying the prohibited target of a defendant's tampering, the Code uses precise language frequently accompanied by specific definitions. In the statute at issue here, however, the legislature proscribed the alteration, destruction, or concealment of a thinga term for an object or entity not precisely designated and perhaps not even capable of being designated. Based on the language of the statute and our comparative analysis of other criminal code sections, we hold that, in order to obtain a conviction for tampering with a thing of evidence, the State is not required to identify the specific object or entity that the defendant altered, destroyed, or concealed with the intent to impair its verity, legibility, or availability as evidence in an investigation or official proceeding. Instead, the statute only requires that the State establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant altered, destroyed, or concealed some evidentiary thing, even if it is not capable of precise identification. See Vaughn v. State, 33 S.W.3d 901, 903-04 (Tex.App. 2000) (holding that, where the prosecution could not positively prove what object the defendant had flushed down the toilet, the proof was factually and legally sufficient to sustain conviction for evidence tampering under a similarly worded statute). [9] In this case Defendant argues that the proof is insufficient to establish that he altered, concealed, or destroyed any thing at all. The State, while conceding that the evidence to support Defendant's tampering conviction is entirely circumstantial, argues that the only reasonable inference is that Defendant flushed the toilet to alter, destroy, or conceal some thing to prevent its availability as evidence in a criminal investigation. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that the evidence was sufficient to support the conviction. We agree. Affording the prosecution the strongest legitimate view of the evidence and all reasonable and legitimate inferences to be drawn therefrom, the facts adduced at trial established that, once members of the crime suppression unit entered the apartment shouting police and search warrant, Defendant got up from the kitchen table and t[ook] off running into the interior of the apartment. After Defendant disappeared the instantaneous sound of a flushing commode was heard. Heading directly upstairs upon entering the apartment, Officer Black confronted Defendant as Defendant came out of the bathroom, while water was still spraying in the toilet bowl. Officer Black found no one else around Defendant when he arrested Defendant. The only reasonable inference to be drawn from this evidence is that Defendant was the person who flushed the commode. The purpose of flushing a commode is to dispose of the contents in the toilet bowl. While those contents ordinarily consist of human waste, the evidence in this case compels a different inference. Officer Traughber heard the instantaneous sound of a flushing commode after Defendant got up from the kitchen table and disappeared from view. As set forth above, Defendant ran for the bathroom with the knowledge that an investigation was pending. When Officer Black apprehended Defendant at the bathroom entrance, Defendant was completely dressed, even as water was still spraying in the toilet bowl. Similarly, Officer Traughber found Defendant wearing all his clothes, even as the commode's water tank continued to refill. Defendant was not rearranging his clothes as would be expected if he had used the toilet for its intended purpose. Officer Traughber also observed water (and not urine) splattered on the toilet seat, as if something had been dropped in the bowl and splashed water up. Furthermore, when asked what he had flushed down the toilet, Defendant repeatedly stated, I snort. Defendant gave no indication that he flushed the commode because he had been using the restroom. Defendant also admitted that the powder cocaine Officer Traughber found at the kitchen table belonged to him. Additionally, according to Lieutenant MacKall's expert testimony, powder cocaine would dissolve in the toilet bowl water, and any other objects that actually went down the toilet would be impossible to recover, even if the members of the crime suppression unit had attempted to lift the toilet off the floor. Taken together, we conclude that the circumstantial evidence in this case supports only one reasonable inference: Defendant flushed some thing down the toilet in order to prevent its confiscation by the police. The instantaneous flushing sound and the water splattered on the toilet seat indicate that, upon seeing the officers enter the apartment, Defendant hastily rushed to the bathroom to throw something in the toilet bowl. If Defendant had run to the bathroom to use the facilities, one would not expect Officer Traughber to hear an immediate flushing sound or to discover merely water splattered on the toilet seat. Furthermore, Defendant's state of complete dress while the toilet bowl was still refilling and his repetition of the statement I snort make it unreasonable to infer that Defendant used the toilet for its intended purpose. The expert testimony confirms that, once Defendant flushed the commode and the contents of the toilet bowl went down into the toilet, the evidence in the bowl became impossible to recover. Defendant thereby concealed and prevented the disclosure of whatever he had flushed down the toilet bowl, ruining its evidentiary value. Thus, Defendant conceal[ed] and destroy[ed] the thing, within the meaning of section 39-16-503(a)(1). See State v. Papillion, 556 So.2d 1331, 1336 (La.Ct.App.1990) (affirming conviction for obstruction of justice where defendant was seen leaning over a flushing commode and officers found drug paraphernalia and cocaine elsewhere in the residence, but nothing besides five bullets was recovered from the commode). [10] We are not persuaded by Defendant's reliance on a case involving the abandonment of evidence during a flight from police. In State v. Patton, law enforcement officers attempted to arrest the defendant at the end of a drug transaction with a police informant. 898 S.W.2d 732, 734 (Tenn.Crim.App.1994). The defendant ran from the officers and tossed away the bag of marijuana that he had just purchased. Officers arrested the defendant and retrieved the bag. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that the trial court properly dismissed the indictment charging the defendant with evidence tampering because the statute did not criminalize `mere abandonment' of contraband. Id. at 736; see also State v. Jones, 983 So.2d 95, 99 (La.2008) (collecting cases for the proposition that tampering with evidence does not occur where a defendant merely drops, throws down, or abandons drugs [or other contraband] in the presence of police officers). In this case, however, Defendant did not merely abandon evidence by, for instance, throwing it in a corner. Instead, the circumstantial evidence establishes that Defendant took some evidentiary thing with him to the bathroom, which he proceeded to flush down the toilet so that the police officers were unable to recover it. After surveying the law across multiple jurisdictions, the Jones court concluded that appellate courts have upheld convictions for evidence tampering where the defendant did something to impair the evidence's integrity, veracity, or availability at trial. 983 So.2d at 100. Here, in flushing some thing down the toilet so that law enforcement could not recover it, Defendant committed the requisite action to impair the evidence's availability at trial, and the mere abandonment cases do not control. We are also not persuaded by Defendant's citation to the factually distinguishable case of C.K. v. State, 753 So.2d 617 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.2000). In that case, the court considered the sufficiency of the evidence for a violation of Florida's evidence-tampering statute, which provides that `(1) No person, knowing that a criminal... investigation by a ... law enforcement agency, ... is pending or about to be instituted, shall: (a) [a]lter, destroy, conceal, or remove any record, document, or thing with the purpose to impair its verity or availability in such ... investigation.' Id. at 618 (quoting Fla. Stat. § 918.13(1)(a) (1997)) (alterations in original). In C.K., the State's only witness at the juvenile defendant's adjudicatory hearing was arresting officer Sierra, who testified that, while he and his partner were driving in an unmarked vehicle, he noticed an individual who matched the description of a suspect. As Officer Sierra parked the car, his partner approached the individual, who made a motion with his hand and began running. The two officers gave chase. They did not announce that they were police officers. Officer Sierra was not in uniform, and the other officer's attire was not described. Officer Sierra testified that, because he was parking the car while his partner approached the individual, [h]e only caught a quick glimpse of [the accused] making a small waving motion [with his hand]. Id. at 617-18. The court held that the evidence was insufficient to support the adjudication of guilt because the prosecution failed to prove that the accused knew of a pending criminal investigation, id. at 618, and further failed to prove that the accused concealed or destroyed any `thing' on the basis of the accused's small hand gesture, id. In our case, by contrast, there is considerably more circumstantial evidence to establish that Defendant did, in fact, flush some thing down the toilet and to refute any other inference to the contrary. Defendant's flight from the police, the instantaneous timing of the flushing, Defendant's completely dressed state while the water tank was still refilling, the splattered water around the toilet seat, Defendant's admitted possession of the cocaine found on the kitchen table, and Defendant's repeatedly saying I snort combine to exclude every reasonable hypothesis other than Defendant's concealment and destruction of some thing in response to the officers' entry and related to Defendant's professed illegal possession and use of drugs. Because we have held that the statute does not require the State to prove the identity of the thing, we need not adopt the portion of the Court of Criminal Appeals' holding that specifically identified cocaine as the thing with which Defendant tampered. [11] However, we note that, under our law, flushing drugs down a toilet constitutes the destruction of evidence and supports a conviction for tampering with evidence. See State v. Abernathy, 159 S.W.3d 601, 603, 605 (Tenn.Crim.App. 2004); see also Logan, 973 S.W.2d at 282 (holding that the defendant successfully destroyed the white powder inside twelve zip-lock bags merely by placing those bags in the toilet because the evidentiary value of the contents of those bags was destroyed). This conclusion is consistent with the law of other jurisdictions that have likewise held the same kind of activity constitutes intentional destruction of evidence within the meaning of evidence-tampering statutes. See, e.g., McKenzie v. State, 632 So.2d 276, 277 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App. 1994); State v. Mendez, 345 N.J.Super. 498, 785 A.2d 945, 954 (N.J.Super.Ct.App.Div.2001); State v. Hawkins-Hall, No. 22381, 2008 WL 2222258, at  (Ohio Ct.App. May 30, 2008); Commonwealth v. Govens, 429 Pa.Super. 464, 632 A.2d 1316, 1328-29 (1993). Although we have interpreted our statute not to require the precise identification of the thing, these precedents support the broader proposition that flushing some thing of evidence down the toilet during a drug-related investigation constitutes the intentional destruction of evidence. In summary, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, we hold that the evidence was sufficient to support Defendant's conviction for tampering with evidence. A reasonable trier of fact could have found all three essential elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Specifically, based on the only reasonable inferences to be drawn from the circumstantial evidence, Defendant knew that an investigation was in progress and thereafter concealed and destroyed some thing with the intent to impair its availability as evidence in the investigation. The statute does not require the State to establish the precise identity of the tampered thing.
Defendant also maintains that the trial court erred by denying Defendant's motion to dismiss the indictment and by improperly instructing the jury. Both of these alleged errors are variants of the issue that we have already resolved, for Defendant merely maintains that both the indictment and jury instructions should have identified the record, document, or thing with which Defendant allegedly tampered.
Because Defendant did not challenge the indictment in the Court of Criminal Appeals, that issue is waived. Tenn. R.App. P. 13(a) advisory comm'n cmt. Nonetheless, under the doctrine of plain error review, we have the authority to consider a waived issue [w]hen necessary to do substantial justice if the issue has affected the substantial rights of a party. Tenn. R.App. P. 36(b); see also State v. Hatcher, 310 S.W.3d 788, 808 (Tenn.2010). The Court does not grant relief under plain error review unless these five criteria are all satisfied: (1) the record clearly establishes what occurred in the trial court; (2) the error breached a clear and unequivocal rule of law; (3) the error adversely affected a substantial right of the complaining party; (4) the error was not waived for tactical purposes; and (5) substantial justice is at stake, that is the error was so significant that it `probably changed the outcome of the trial.' State v. Smith, 24 S.W.3d 274, 282-83 (Tenn. 2000) (quoting State v. Adkisson, 899 S.W.2d 626, 642 (Tenn.Crim.App.1994)). The defendant bears the burden of persuading us that the trial court committed plain error. State v. Banks, 271 S.W.3d 90, 119 (Tenn.2008). We need not consider all five factors if it is clear from the record that at least one factor cannot be established. Smith, 24 S.W.3d at 283. Here, Defendant does not even attempt to carry his burden of persuading us that all five criteria of plain-error review are satisfied. Instead, Defendant merely insists his indictment was defective because it did not identify the thing with which Defendant tampered. The indictment must provide notice to the defendant of the charged offense, provide the court with adequate grounds for entering a proper judgment, and adequately protect the defendant against double jeopardy. State v. Byrd, 820 S.W.2d 739, 741 (Tenn. 1991). It is generally sufficient for the indictment to state the offense charged in the words of the statute. State v. Griffis, 964 S.W.2d 577, 591 (Tenn.Crim.App.1997). As we have held supra, the specific identity of the thing with which Defendant tampered is not an essential element of the offense. By alleging that Defendant tampered with any record, document, or thing, the indictment was not constitutionally deficient. Therefore, Defendant has failed to establish the breach of a clear and unequivocal rule of law. Plain error relief is not warranted.
Turning to Defendant's final issue, the Court of Criminal Appeals correctly articulated the legal principles that govern jury instructions in criminal cases. Every defendant has a right to a correct and complete charge of the law so that each issue of fact raised by the evidence will be submitted to the jury on proper instructions. State v. Farner, 66 S.W.3d 188, 204 (Tenn.2001). The omission of an essential element from the jury charge is subject to harmless error analysis. State v. Garrison, 40 S.W.3d 426, 434 (Tenn. 2000). An instruction should be considered prejudicially erroneous only if the jury charge, when read as a whole, fails to fairly submit the legal issues or misleads the jury as to the applicable law. State v. Faulkner, 154 S.W.3d 48, 58 (Tenn.2005). Here, the instruction found in the record essentially employed the language of our evidence tampering statute, see Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-16-503(a). In relying on the statutory language, the instruction fairly submitted the legal issues and did not mislead the jury concerning the applicable law. See Woods v. Herman Walldorf & Co., 26 S.W.3d 868, 878 (Tenn. Ct.App.1999); State v. Dillmon, No. M 1997 00080 CCA R3 CD, 1999 WL 1257722, at -10 (Tenn.Crim.App. Dec. 28, 1999). We acknowledge that the verbal charge delivered by the trial judge contains an internal correction. Initially, the trial judge referred to Defendant's alteration, destruction, or concealment of any record. She immediately corrected this limited description, however, by explaining that it also needs to be record or any thing. It should be thing  (emphasis added). The judge then stated that she was going to change this, by which we presume that she was going to make the correction on the written jury charge that the jury took into deliberations. She also advised the jury at the end of all the instructions that there were typographical errors that needed to be corrected on the main charge and that she would make the changes and then make copies for the jurors before they began deliberating the next morning. Because Defendant failed to include the written jury charge in the record before this Court, see Tenn. R.App. 24(b), we are unable to confirm that the written correction was made. [12] In any event, Defendant's complaint before this Court is limited to the trial court's failure to identify the thing in her instructions to the jury. Although Tennessee Pattern Jury Instruction (Criminal) 26.03 directs the trial court to name the record, document, or thing when charging the jury on tampering with evidence, we have squarely held that a trial court is not limited to using the pattern instructions. James, 315 S.W.3d at 445-46; State v. West, 844 S.W.2d 144, 151 (Tenn.1992). Furthermore, as we have already held supra, in cases involving alleged tampering with objects or entities, the specific identity of the thing is not an essential element of the crime. Rather, the State must establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused tampered with some thing. We hold that the trial court did not err in failing to name in its jury instruction the thing with which Defendant tampered. [13]