Opinion ID: 1060373
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Vice Squad Report

Text: During the testimony of Floyd Cupp, the defense sought to introduce a vice squad report, dated March 31, 1977, requesting indictments on several people based on Watkins' undercover gambling investigation. Cupp was a retired Memphis police officer who had worked with Watkins during the undercover gambling investigation and had prepared the report. The defense argued that the report was evidence of other persons who had a motive for killing Watkins. The trial court refused to admit the report on the ground that it was hearsay. Contrary to the ruling of the trial court, hearsay is admissible in a capital sentencing hearing. See State v. Odom, 928 S.W.2d 18, 28 (Tenn.1996). The Rules of Evidence should not be applied to preclude the admission of relevant evidence in a capital sentencing hearing. See State v. Sims, 45 S.W.3d 1, 14 (Tenn.2001). Because Austin did not offer any evidence linking any of the other persons named in the vice squad report to Watkins' murder, the report was of negligible probative value. However, it was not irrelevant. Evidence concerning other persons who had a motive to kill Watkins was relevant to support residual doubt as a nonstatutory mitigating circumstance. The trial court allowed defense counsel to cross-examine Cupp concerning the names contained in the report. If testimony concerning the content of the vice squad report was relevant enough to be admissible, then the report was admissible as well. We therefore conclude that the trial court erred in excluding the report. However, because the essence of the vice squad report was admitted through Cupp's testimony, the error in excluding the report itself was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See Cauthern, 967 S.W.2d at 739.