Court Opinion

ID: 9915652
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-06 00:07:22.788414+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:17:39.361185
License: Public Domain

01/05/2024
        IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE
                          AT JACKSON
                Assigned on Briefs December 19, 2023 at Knoxville

         STATE OF TENNESSEE v. LANORIS CORDELL CARTER

                   Appeal from the Circuit Court for Lake County
                   No. 19-CR-10638 Tony Childress, Chancellor
                     ___________________________________

                           No. W2023-00448-CCA-R3-CD
                       ___________________________________

Defendant, Lanoris Cordell Carter, appeals his Lake County Circuit Court conviction for
tampering with evidence. He argues on appeal that the evidence was insufficient to support
his conviction. Defendant asserts that throwing items out of a car window during an
attempted traffic stop such that law enforcement could not recover the items is “mere
abandonment” rather than concealment or destruction for purposes of the evidence
tampering statute. After review, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

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

TIMOTHY L. EASTER, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which JILL BARTEE AYERS,
and TOM GREENHOLTZ, JJ., joined.

M. Todd Ridley (on appeal), Assistant Public Defender – Appellate Division, Franklin,
Tennessee; Sean Day, District Public Defender; and H. Tod Taylor (at trial), Assistant
Public Defender, Dyersburg, Tennessee, for the appellant, Lanoris Cordell Carter.

Jonathan Skrmetti, Attorney General and Reporter; G. Kirby May, Assistant Attorney
General; Danny Goodman, Jr., District Attorney General; and Andrew Hays and Lance
Webb, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

                                       OPINION

                            Factual and Procedural History

      On February 18, 2019, Tennessee Highway Patrol Trooper Anthony Jackson was
on routine patrol on State Route 78 in Lake County, Tennessee. Trooper Jackson saw a
black Dodge Charger drive by he believed was speeding. Trooper Jackson turned around
to pursue the vehicle and determined with his radar that the Charger was driving 69 miles
per hour in a 55-mile-per-hour speed zone. Trooper Jackson activated his blue lights and
siren to initiate a traffic stop. Trooper Jackson made eye contact with Defendant in
Defendant’s rear-view mirror and motioned for Defendant to pull over. Rather than stop,
Defendant slowed down and Trooper Jackson saw Defendant throw “a small object” and a
plastic baggie out of the window. Defendant continued down Route 78 for another three
miles before stopping.

        Trooper Jackson approached the Charger after it stopped and smelled an odor he
believed was marijuana. Trooper Jackson ordered Defendant, the vehicle’s driver and its
sole occupant, out of the vehicle. Trooper Jackson asked Defendant for his license and
Defendant responded that he did not have one. Defendant gave Trooper Jackson his
identification and Trooper Jackson discovered that Defendant’s driver’s license was
suspended. Trooper Jackson arrested Defendant for driving with a suspended license1 and
called for another officer so Trooper Jackson could search Defendant’s vehicle.

       Trooper Grant Montgomery arrived at the scene upon Trooper Jackson’s call.
Trooper Montgomery administered Defendant the Miranda warnings while Trooper
Jackson searched Defendant’s vehicle. After administering the warnings, Trooper
Montgomery asked Defendant whether he had thrown anything out of the window during
the traffic stop. Defendant told Trooper Montgomery that he had thrown “a little bit of
marijuana” and a “blunt” out of the window.2 Trooper Jackson found what he estimated
to be around three grams of a “green leafy substance” in the driver’s side floorboard and
under the driver’s seat of Defendant’s vehicle.

       As Troopers Jackson and Montgomery took Defendant to the Lake County jail, they
stopped where Defendant had thrown the items out of his window in an attempt to find
them. They found neither the baggie nor the small object. Trooper Jackson recalled at trial
that February 18, 2019 was “a clear day, but very windy.”

       The Lake County Grand Jury indicted Defendant in July 2019 for one count of
tampering with evidence and one count of simple possession of marijuana. Based on the
testimony of Troopers Jackson and Montgomery, and with no additional proof from
Defendant, a Lake County jury convicted Defendant of tampering with evidence. The jury
acquitted Defendant of simple possession of marijuana.

        1
          This offense is not at issue in this appeal and therefore merits no further discussion.
        2
          Defendant unsuccessfully sought to suppress this statement before trial. The propriety of the trial
court’s ruling on that motion is not at issue here.
                                                   -2-
       The trial court sentenced Defendant as a Range II, multiple offender to seven years’
incarceration. Defendant timely appealed.

                                          Analysis

       Defendant argues on appeal that the evidence is insufficient to support his
conviction for tampering with evidence because the evidence at trial demonstrated he
merely abandoned the items he threw out of the window rather than concealing or
destroying them for purposes of the tampering with evidence statute. The State argues that
the evidence is sufficient. We agree with the State.

        When examining whether the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to support a
conviction, several well-settled principles guide our analysis. We determine “whether,
after viewing 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.”
Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979) (emphasis in original); see also Tenn. R.
App. P. 13(e). A guilty verdict removes the presumption of innocence and replaces it with
a presumption of guilt. State v. Evans, 838 S.W.2d 185, 191 (Tenn. 1992). The defendant
bears the burden on appeal to demonstrate that the evidence is insufficient to support his
conviction. State v. Tuggle, 639 S.W.2d 913, 914 (Tenn. 1982).

       “[A] jury verdict, approved by the trial judge, accredits the testimony of the
witnesses for the State and resolves all conflicts in favor of the theory of the State.” State
v. Harris, 839 S.W.2d 54, 75 (Tenn. 1992). The State is entitled on appeal to “the strongest
legitimate view of the evidence and to all reasonable and legitimate inferences that may be
drawn therefrom.” State v. Elkins, 102 S.W.3d 578, 581 (Tenn. 2003). As such, this Court
is precluded from re-weighing or reconsidering the evidence when evaluating the
convicting proof. State v. Morgan, 929 S.W.2d 380, 383 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1996); State
v. Matthews, 805 S.W.2d 776, 779 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1990). Moreover, we may not
substitute our own “inferences for those drawn by the trier of fact from circumstantial
evidence.” Matthews, 805 S.W.2d at 79. Questions as to the credibility of witnesses and
the weight of the evidence, as well as factual issues raised by such evidence, are resolved
by the trier of fact, not this Court. State v. Pruett, 788 S.W.2d 559, 561 (Tenn. 1990).
These principles guide us “‘whether the conviction is based upon direct or circumstantial
evidence.’” State v. Dorantes, 331 S.W.3d 370, 379 (Tenn. 2011) (quoting State v.
Hanson, 279 S.W.3d 265, 275 (Tenn. 2009)).

      Defendant was convicted here of tampering with evidence in violation of Tennessee
Code Annotated section 39-16-503(a)(1). That statute provides, as relevant here:

                                            -3-
        (a) It is unlawful for any person, knowing that an investigation or official
        proceeding is pending or in progress, to:

                (1) Alter, destroy, or conceal any . . . thing with intent to impair its
                verity, legibility, or availability as evidence in the investigation or
                official proceeding . . . .

T.C.A. § 39-16-503(a)(1).

         “The State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant altered,
destroyed, or concealed a piece of evidence in the form of a record, document or thing”
“with intent to impair its verity, legibility, or availability as evidence.” State v. Hawkins,
406 S.W.3d 121, 132 (Tenn. 2013). Our supreme court held in Hawkins that the defendant
did not tamper with evidence when he threw a gun over a fence because the evidence “was
not altered or destroyed,” “its discovery was delayed minimally, if at all[,]” and it “retained
its full evidentiary value.” Id. at 138. The court noted a “consensus” among jurisdictions
that “when a person who is committing a possessory offense drops evidence in the presence
of police officers, and the officers are able to recover the evidence with minimal effort,
discarding the evidence amounts to mere abandonment, not tampering.” Id. at 134 (citation
and internal quotations omitted).

        Defendant relies primarily on Hawkins and State v. Patton, 898 S.W.2d 732 (Tenn.
Crim. App. 1994), to support his contention that the evidence is insufficient to support his
conviction for tampering with evidence. In Patton, which pre-dates Hawkins, this Court
held that “the defendant’s act of tossing aside a bag of marijuana during the course of flight
from law enforcement officials did not fall within the definition of evidence tampering.”
Id. at 736. Defendant asks us to reject the State’s “categorical argument” that the evidence
is sufficient because the troopers failed to recover the thrown objects. However, whether
the objects were found or the police were significantly delayed in finding them is precisely
the question on which similar cases turn: the evidence is sufficient to support convictions
for evidence tampering in cases where discovery of the evidence is delayed significantly
or prevented altogether, and insufficient in cases where the police are delayed minimally
in discovering the evidence.3 Indeed, Hawkins relies in part on this fact in reversing the
defendant’s conviction for tampering with evidence. See Hawkins, 406 S.W.3d at 138
(“The evidence was not altered or destroyed, and its discovery was delayed minimally, if
at all.”). Other recent cases support this distinction. See, e.g., State v. Graves, No. W2021-
01478-CCA-R3-CD, 2023 WL 1873379, at *4 (Tenn. Crim. App. Feb. 9, 2023), no perm.

        3
          This is why our supreme court declined to adopt a standalone abandonment doctrine in Hawkins:
“If the evidence is not actually altered, concealed, or destroyed . . . then the application of a separate
abandonment doctrine would be redundant.” Hawkins, 406 S.W.3d at 138.
                                                  -4-
app. filed; State v. Beasley, No. W2021-00585-CCA-R3-CD, 2022 WL 2315732, at *4-5
(Tenn. Crim. App. June 28, 2022), no perm. app. filed; State v. Ellis, No. M2020-01451-
CCA-R3-CD, 2021 WL 6065321, at *5-7 (Tenn. Crim. App. Dec. 22, 2021), perm. app.
denied (Tenn. May 18, 2022).

        This Court recently held in State v. Hughes, No. W2022-00571-CCA-R3-CD, 2023
WL 2159249 (Tenn. Crim. App. Feb. 22, 2023), perm. app. denied (Tenn. May 15, 2023),
that the evidence was sufficient to support the defendant’s conviction for tampering with
evidence. When police attempted to initiate a traffic stop, the defendant threw a bag of
marijuana out of the car window. Id. at *1. The marijuana was strewn about the roadway.
Id. at *4. The police spent significant time collecting the marijuana and were unable to
collect all of it. Id. This was dispositive in the panel’s conclusion that the defendant’s
actions were more than “mere abandonment,” and the evidence therefore sufficient to
support his conviction. Id. (citing Hawkins, 406 S.W.3d at 134). We see no reason to
depart from our previous logic in deciding this case.

       Other cases Defendant cites are readily distinguishable from the facts here. In both
State v. Brown, No. E2016-00314-CCA-R3-CD, 2017 WL 2464981 (Tenn. Crim. App.
June 7, 2017), and State v. Hill, No. W2015-00688-CCA-R3-CD, 2015 WL 6522834
(Tenn. Crim. App. Oct. 28, 2015), the defendants retained possession of the evidence in
question and it was almost immediately discovered by law enforcement. Brown, 2017 WL
2464981, at *7; Hill, 2015 WL 6522834, at *4. Here, by contrast, Defendant threw the
items out of the car window and drove for another three miles before he stopped, and the
items were never recovered, effectively resulting in their destruction.

       The proof presented at trial showed that Trooper Jackson saw Defendant speeding
and activated his blue lights and siren to initiate a traffic stop. Trooper Jackson made eye
contact with Defendant and motioned for him to pull over. Defendant did not stop but
slowed down, and Trooper Jackson saw a plastic baggie and a small object thrown out of
the window. After he was administered Miranda warnings, Defendant told Trooper
Montgomery that he had thrown some marijuana and a blunt out of the window. When the
troopers looked for the items Defendant described in the location where he threw them out,
the troopers could not find them. The items were never recovered.

       Taking the above proof in the light most favorable to the State, we conclude that a
rational jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt that Defendant, while knowing that an
investigation was ongoing, destroyed or concealed the items he threw out of the window
with the intent to impair their availability in a subsequent investigation or proceeding. The
evidence is therefore sufficient to support Defendant’s conviction for tampering with
evidence. Defendant is not entitled to relief.

                                            -5-
                              CONCLUSION

For the above reasons, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

                                                                         _
                                                  TIMOTHY L. EASTER, JUDGE

                                     -6-