Court Opinion

ID: 9863022
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 02:50:01.099949+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:46:05.286377
License: Public Domain

On Petition to Eehear
Counsel for the plaintiff in error has filed herein a courteous, dignified and forceful petition to rehear to which we have given very thorough consideration.
In the first four grounds of this petition, it is contended, in general, that there actually was a search. It is in effect argued that the wife of the petitioner admitted the officers and gave them the coat in compliance with “orders” of the officers. It is likewise argued that the trial judge held that there was a search and that at any rate the officers seized petitioner’s coat and took it with them after the man’s wife had handed it. to them. These arguments largely deal with the factual situation which we considered in preparing our original opinion. We found from this evidence, and think unquestionably this is correct, that the wife, an intelligent woman, a nurse- by trade, voluntarily gave the officers the coat and wanted to cooperate with the officers in every way that she could because she thought that it was “the right thing to do.” Under such a factual situation we do not think there was *623a search. The facts of this case, as to her consent, are very similar to the facts in a recent case, opinion prepared by the late Mr. Justice Holmes, of Shafer v. State, 214 Tenn. 416, 381 S.W.2d 254. In the Shafer case we found that there was no illegal search. Unquestionably the same conclusion must be reached here.
The trial judge found, and we think the record clearly supports this finding, that there was no coercion of the man’s wife in this case at all, and then clearly, if there is no coercion, there can be no search under any stretch of the imagination, unless the search occurred after the officers received possession of the coat. It is obvious that whatever consent there was to start with necessarily carried over. If the coat was legally obtained, clearly no constitutional rights have been violated and thus no constitutional questions have been resolved.
It is very forcefully argued that we failed to distinguish this case from that of Byrd v. State, 161 Tenn. 306, 30 S.W.2d 273, and, since we did not so distinguish this case from the Byrd case, we should have followed the Byrd case. A careful reading of the Byrd case clearly shows that it is not in point with the facts of the instant case. In the Byrd case it was found that the officers’ request on that “ignorant woman” was equivalent to a demand for the purpose of that particular situation. As we have shown in the original opinion, and heretofore in this opinion, there was no demand and the woman herein was not an ignorant woman. She was a nurse by profession and had attended college.
It is argued that we “inadvertently overlooked the fact” that the case of Batchelor v. State, which we cited in our original opinion, and the cases therein cited, rely primarily upon admission of guilt rather than naked *624ownership of the seized property. This argument is in connection with our statement that the petitioner waived any objection he might have to the search warrant when he testified as to his ownership of the coat and thus attempted to say where the buttons had gone, etc. We think that our statement and conclusion in the original opinion were correct, and even under this situation, by the man thus testifying regardless of what we have heretofore said about the search warrant, and even if the coat had been illegally obtained, by thus testifying the man makes the evidence competent.
There are many cases in this jurisdiction and others which deal with the broad principle that if a defendant testifies in substance as to evidence which has been otherwise erroneously admitted, then his testimony clears whatever error there might have been. See Zachary v. State, 144 Tenn. 623, 234 S.W. 758; Moon v. State, 146 Tenn. 319, 242 S.W. 39; Switzer v. State, 213 Tenn. 671, 378 S.W.2d 760; Owens v. State, 202 Tenn. 679, 308 S.W. 2d 423; Cathey v. State, 191 Tenn. 617, 235 S.W.2d 601; and others. Thus, these cases clearly show that the rule is not limited to the situation where the defendant takes the stand and admits he committed the crime with which he was charged.
Finally, it is argued that we did not pass upon the assignment of the excessiveness of the verdict. This assignment in our view is without merit because the jury found the defendant guilty of armed robbery and the verdict of twenty years is comparatively light when it is considered that armed robbery is a capital offense.
After carefully considering the petition to rehear it must be overruled.