Opinion ID: 774300
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Tennessee Rite-Aid Robbery

Text: 3 On November 26, 1995, two armed gunmen robbed the Rite-Aid Drug Store in Clinton, Tennessee, and absconded with numerous pharmaceutical drugs, including Schedule II, Schedule III, and Schedule IV controlled substances. During the robbery, one of the robbers (later identified as Burton) repeatedly asked Katrina DeBusk, the Rite-Aid pharmacist, about the location of several drugs, including Dilaudid pills and morphine. Several days after the robbery, DeBusk helped police prepare a composite sketch of the first suspect in about fifteen minutes. Police worked on a composite of the second suspect (again, later identified as Burton) for approximately three hours but failed to produce a sketch satisfactory to DeBusk. 4 Approximately one month later, DeBusk and Shelly Simonds, the only other Rite-Aid employee present during the robbery, separately identified Burton as one of the robbers from a photographic line-up. The Clinton Police Department, which uses black-and-white mug shots, had obtained Burton's photograph from the Lexington, Kentucky, Police Department, which uses color mug shots. Accordingly, Burton's photograph was the only color photograph shown to the witnesses. On March 6, 1998, both witnesses again identified Burton as the perpetrator, this time from a live line-up. Burton was the only person represented in both the photo line-up and the live line-up. 5 Although neither witness was able to identify Crozier as Burton's accomplice during the robbery, Crozier's brother-in-law, Richard Randolph, testified at trial that in early December, Crozier showed him a bag containing bottles of pharmaceutical drugs and told him that Crozier and Burton had obtained the drugs by robbing a Tennessee drugstore.