Court Opinion

ID: 9647450
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:36:59.834082+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:53.255597
License: Public Domain

ALLEN R. CORNELIUS, Jr., Special Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the scholarly opinion authored by Judge White and in which Judge Tipton concurred.
This trial began with the defendant’s plea ■ of not guilty.
In my opinion the' direct evidence overwhelmingly established a most brutal and atrocious homicide. The evidence points unerringly to this having been an intentional, deliberately premeditated killing of another human being. T.C.A. § 39-13-202.
As an intermediate court judge, I accept the holding of State v. Brown, 836 S.W.2d 530 (Term.1992) which requires that to establish first degree murder a premeditated killing must also have been done deliberately, with coolness and reflection, with more than a split-second intention.
This record establishes that on May 10, 1991 the defendant’s wife informed him that she was leaving him and that she was interested in someone else. It does not appear that she directly told her husband the name or address of her paramour with whom she was living.
Mrs. Phipps testified that she had met the defendant at their former home on May 15, 1991 to work on their prior financial affairs. She agreed to return at the end of the month and on May 31 arrived at defendant’s home in Dover about 1:00 in the afternoon to pay bills and have lunch. She and the victim had opened a joint checking account on which she wrote the defendant a check inking out the victim’s name but leaving visible the address. She left at 3:00 p.m. after commenting that she had to go home to rest before working from 11:00 p.m. until 7:00 a.m. The defendant asked her to stay but she refused. She testified further that the victim visited her during her break at work and left for home at 4:00 a.m.
The testimony of Larry Flood, Elaine Flood, and Mary Solmon was consistent that between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. June 1,1991 they were awakened by activities at the house across the street from the Floods and next door to Mary Solmon. According to these neighbors there was an intense fight at the house identified as the victim’s. While it was not yet daylight, Mr. Flood related that he was able to see through the door into the far corner of the living room (of the victim’s house) and saw two figures fighting. He saw them run out the door, one ahead of the other. The first man was yelling, “help me, someone please help me.” The two went to the Solmons’ home. Mr. Flood could not see the Solmons’ door but heard “beating on the porch, — and hollering and screaming,— know, — then it quit, — then,—”
Mrs. Flood called the Sheriff’s office and relayed what her husband was seeing and hearing. She too heard the blows on two occasions and described the sound as if hitting a tree or the pavement.
Mrs. Solmon placed the time at about 5:30 a.m. when a man began beating on her door saying, “help, help, he is beating me to death.” This lasted about ten minutes, she took her children to the rear of the house. When the police arrived she went out and saw the front of her house. At the trial she was able to identify a picture of her bloody front door.
The first officer to arrive on the scene was Damon Lowe. As he approached the house he looked to the house where he observed a white male entering the driver’s side of a white Oldsmobile parked in the driveway. He pulled into the driveway and noticed that the front door and porch of the house directly to his left were covered with blood. The white car had blood on its front door and all *155he could see was one person, later identified as Phipps.
Officer Lowe asked Phipps what was going on. Phipps replied that there was a gentleman in the car that he was trying- to take to the emergency room, — that he (Phipps) had been driving down the road and saw a fight, — that someone was beating this man, and he stopped to help him. Officer Lowe looked in the car and saw the man later identified as Mr. Presson. Presson was naked except for a pair of black bikini underwear. He was covered with blood and some grass. Officer Lowe could see Mr. Presson’s forehead and that a portion of his brain was exposed. Lying on top of his leg and hip area was a wooden stick like a sledge-hammer handle which was split and under one black glove covered with blood. Later the other glove was found on the back floorboard of the Oldsmobile. Lowe asked Phipps about his automobile and was told it was beside the house, but Lowe could not see another vehicle. The officer interrupted his investigation to check on the ambulance, then he again asked Phipps if he had any idea of the victim’s name. Phipps stated that his last name was Presson, that his wife had been living with him. Phipps was also covered with blood,- sweating profusely and appeared exhausted. He did not appear intoxicated and was coherent.
Officer Lowe and an off-duty officer found Phipps’ truck parked on a graveled lot beside some school buses. It was not parked in a manner that one could see the front of the Solmons’ house or where one would stop on the side of the road to offer help.
Investigator Riggins, of the Sheriffs office testified consistently with the other state witnesses. He was questioned more in detail regarding the location of the defendant’s truck and the victim’s home. Mr. Riggins also described the items found inside the defendant’s truck.
Mr. Lindy Walker and his wife, Patsy Walker, lived next to the Solmons. They were awakened at approximately 5:00 a.m. by the activities at Mrs. Solmon’s. Their testimony was consistent with that of their neighbors.
The jury heard the testimony of experts for both the state and the defense, the argument of the attorneys as well as the court’s charge, then retired to deliberate. The jury returned to the courtroom with its verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, which was accepted and approved by the trial court.
From my review of the record, I find that the evidence; both direct and circumstantial, is overwhelmingly sufficient for any rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt that this defendant is guilty of an intentional, deliberately premeditated murder in the first degree for the crime charged. He did not plead insanity, nor did any of the experts find him entitled to such a defense. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); State v. Duncan, 698 S.W.2d 63 (Tenn.1985); Rule 13(e), T.R.A.P.
Having reviewed State v. Shelton, 854 S.W.2d at 117, and relative past Tennessee cases, I find that the overwhelming facts of the case and the defendant’s “disavowal” of the insanity defense did not require that the trial court have given jury instructions on diminished capacity.
For the reasons heretofore stated, I find no.merit in issues one and two.
I am of the opinion that issues three and four, as presented under the facts in this record, are without merit. See Rule 36(b) T.R.A.P.
I, therefore, dissent;