State of Tennessee v. Jamie Lynn Moore

11/26/2018

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE

AT NASHVILLE

Assigned on Briefs August 28, 2018

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. JAMIE LYNN MOORE

Appeal from the Criminal Court for Davidson County

No. 2015-B-1433 Steve R. Dozier, Judge

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No. M2017-01877-CCA-R3-CD

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The Defendant-Appellant, Jamie Lynn Moore, was convicted by a Davidson County jury

of aggravated kidnapping and violation of an order of protection, see T.C.A. §§ 39-13-

304, -113, for which he received an effective sentence of nine years in confinement. The

sole issue presented in this appeal is whether the evidence is sufficient to support his

conviction for aggravated kidnapping. Specifically, the Defendant claims that the State

failed to prove that he substantially interfered with the victim’s liberty. After review, we

affirm the judgments of the trial court.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgments of the Criminal Court Affirmed;

Remanded for Entry of Judgments on Dismissed Counts

CAMILLE R. MCMULLEN, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which THOMAS T.

WOODALL and TIMOTHY L. EASTER, JJ., joined.

Richard C. Strong, Nashville, Tennessee, for the Defendant-Appellant, Jamie Lynn

Moore.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Alexander C. Vey, Assistant

Attorney General; Glenn Funk, District Attorney General; and Jennifer Charles, Assistant

District Attorney General, for the Appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

Prior to May 8, 2015, the night of the offense, the Defendant and Jenifer Strang,

the victim, had been in a tumultuous, six-year romantic relationship. On the night of the

offense, in an effort to reconcile, the couple had gone out to dinner and returned to the

victim’s apartment. The victim discovered the Defendant using drugs in the bathroom,

became upset, and an argument ensued. The argument eventually led to a physical

confrontation, during which the Defendant prevented the victim from leaving her

apartment for approximately two hours. When she managed to escape, she borrowed a

phone from neighbors and called the police. The Defendant was subsequently indicted

for the aforementioned charges, and the following facts as relevant to the issue raised in

this appeal were adduced at the October 31 through November 1, 2016 trial.

At trial, the Defendant conceded in his opening statement that he committed

domestic assault on the night of the offense. However, he insisted that he was not guilty

of aggravated kidnapping and maintained, as he does on appeal, that the State had

“overcharged” the case. The Defendant further argued that the only evidence of

substantial interference with the victim’s liberty or confinement was from the testimony

of the victim, and he vehemently contested her version of the facts. As relevant to

aggravated kidnapping, the victim testified that upon returning to her apartment after

dinner, she and the Defendant argued over the Defendant’s drug use in her apartment.

The victim recalled that while they were outside on her patio, she was flipped over in her

chair, and the Defendant was on top of her with his hand over her face and mouth. The

victim bit the Defendant, and the Defendant then bit the victim’s nose and punched her in

the cheek and eye, at which point the victim passed out. When the victim awoke, she was

“standing up against the wall in [the] kitchen” with the Defendant “pressed up against

[her].” She recalled trying to get away from the Defendant and “telling him he just

need[ed] to back away, stop touching me, get away from me.”

The victim then asked the Defendant if she could use the bathroom mirror to look

at her injuries. The victim testified there was a bathroom downstairs, but she preferred to

use the one upstairs because she “was trying to get far away” and “create distance.” As

the victim examined her injuries, the Defendant ripped the bathroom vanity off the wall

and said, “I’m not going to jail.” The victim then recalled pacing back and forth in her

bedroom looking for her phone because she “wanted to call the police to come get [the

Defendant] out of [her] apartment so [she could] get out.” Asked if there was ever an

opportunity where she could leave the apartment, the victim said “no[,] [h]e wouldn’t let

me.” Although most of the night was “a big blur” to the victim, she recalled a bedroom

window on the second floor of the apartment being opened, but was unable to use it to

escape because she “would have got hurt.”

The victim further described the night of the offense as “just constant battling

trying to get from one point to another.” The Defendant grabbed her hair, and the two

eventually fell through the front door. The victim was then able to run to the parking lot

to a neighbor’s house, at which point she remembered calling 911.

The 911 call was played for the jury and admitted into evidence without objection.

A woman named Mary Beth actually called 911 and is heard asking the victim her name.

The victim then begins to speak to the 911 operator and describes the Defendant as an

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“intruder” at her apartment. At varying points during the call, the victim exclaimed,

“[H]e’s not supposed to be there and it took me like for the last two hours trying to get

out of my apartment. . . . [H]e destroyed everything. . . . It took me forever to get out of

the apartment.” Asked by the operator if the Defendant kept her locked in the apartment

for two hours, the victim replied, “almost, it’s been like that, we been (sic) fighting I been

trying to get away for two hours. Oh, my God!” The victim identified several injuries

sustained on the night in question. Although she could not remember specific details, she

said she was hit on the face and eye, bitten on the nose, and had bruises on both arms

from defending herself.

On cross-examination, the victim admitted that the Defendant allowed her to go to

the upstairs bathroom to examine her face. She said the Defendant did not take her by the

arm, she just “ran up the stairs.” She conceded that she could only remember “bits and

pieces” of the night. Asked if the only time she attempted to leave the apartment was

when she got out, she said, “[r]ight. I’d probably tried all night long, I just don’t

remember.” She explained that she was “happy to get out. After a certain point of

getting hit and dragged and beat and punched, it’s just like eventually you just want to get

the h[---] out.” The victim further acknowledged discrepancies between her testimony

and the audio recording of the 911 call. Although she initially thought she called 911, the

911 recording established a neighbor actually called. She also agreed that the caller

never said she saw the victim and the Defendant tumble out the front door of the

apartment.

Metro Nashville Police Officer Ryan Koslowski testified that he and his partner,

Officer Christopher Templin, received a call and responded to the victim’s apartment a

little after midnight on May 9, 2015. As the officers were in route to the apartment, they

encountered the Defendant walking east along Walton Lane. The officers noticed that the

Defendant met the description of the individual in the dispatch call and stopped to talk to

him. After verifying his name, officers placed the Defendant in the back of the police

car. Officer Koslowski noticed “fresh wounds” on the Defendant’s knuckles. The

Defendant also appeared intoxicated and was “agitated” and “aggressive.” Once officers

placed the Defendant in the car, they continued to the victim’s apartment and encountered

the victim standing in the parking lot of the apartment complex. Officer Koslowski took

photographs of the scene and noticed lamps knocked over, a broken remote control,

blood on the door frame, and clumps of the victim’s hair lying on the ground outside of

the apartment. Asked if he noticed any open, bleeding wounds on the victim, Officer

Koslowski confirmed that the victim had injuries, but she was not bleeding. He further

confirmed that an ambulance was not called to the scene, and he was unsure where the

blood in the apartment came from. He said he briefly went upstairs in the apartment, and

remembered it “being [in] disarray[.]” However, he could not give an accurate

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description. He said that he would have taken a photograph of the vanity had it been

ripped off the bathroom wall.

Metro Nashville Police Officer Craig Amabile testified that he was the first officer

to respond to the victim’s apartment. When he arrived, he encountered the victim

standing near the apartment steps in the parking lot trying to get his attention. He said

she appeared “upset” and “fearful.” He noticed the victim’s hair had been “ripped out,”

and that she was bruised and crying. When Officer Amabile first spoke to the victim, she

told him, “He may still be inside. He wouldn’t let me leave.”

Officer Templin of the Metro Nashville Police Department testified consistently

with Officer Koslowski. Officer Templin additionally testified that the Defendant was

taken back to the victim’s apartment so officers could complete their investigation. As

officers began to take photographs of the Defendant’s injuries, he became

“uncooperative,” “aggressive,” “agitated,” and began “cursing.” As a result, officers

were unable to take the photographs. Officer Templin described the condition of the

victim’s apartment as having “obvious signs of struggle.” He recalled a window being

raised in the upstairs bathroom. When he spoke with the victim, she told him “she had

got out of the window, tried to escape through the window.” Asked if he remembered

anything in particular about a mirror, he said he did not. Officer Templin admitted that

while the victim showed signs of trauma, she was not bleeding. He also admitted that no

photographs were taken of the Defendant’s injuries, even though officers could have

forced him to comply.

At the conclusion of proof, the jury convicted the Defendant as charged in the

indictment. The trial court sentenced him as a Range I, standard offender to a concurrent

term of nine years for aggravated kidnapping and eleven months, twenty-nine days for

violation of an order of protection, for a total effective sentence of nine years in

confinement. On January 6, 2017, the Defendant filed a motion for new trial, which was

denied by the trial court on February 10, 2017. The Defendant filed an untimely notice of

appeal on September 15, 2017, and on September 27, 2017, this court waived the timely

filing requirement.

ANALYSIS

The sole issue on appeal is whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain the

Defendant’s conviction of aggravated kidnapping. The Defendant argues that there is

insufficient evidence to sustain his conviction because the State failed to establish that he

substantially interfered with the victim’s liberty. At best, he contends, the evidence

established attempted aggravated kidnapping. The State responds, and we agree, that the

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evidence presented was sufficient to establish the Defendant’s conviction of aggravated

kidnapping.

In resolving this issue, we apply the following well-established principles and

rules of law. The State, on appeal, is entitled to the strongest legitimate view of the

evidence and all reasonable inferences which may be drawn from that evidence. State v.

Bland, 958 S.W.2d 651, 659 (Tenn. 1997). When a defendant challenges the sufficiency

of the evidence, the standard of review applied by this court is “whether, after reviewing

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). Similarly, Rule 13(e) of the Tennessee Rules of

Appellate Procedure states, “Findings of guilt in criminal actions whether by the trial

court or jury shall be set aside if the evidence is insufficient to support a finding by the

trier of fact of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” Guilt may be found beyond a

reasonable doubt in a case where there is direct evidence, circumstantial evidence, or a

combination of the two. State v. Matthews, 805 S.W.2d 776, 779 (Tenn. Crim. App.

1990) (citing State v. Brown, 551 S.W.2d 329, 331 (Tenn. 1977); Farmer v. State, 343

S.W.2d 895, 897 (Tenn. 1961)). The trier of fact must evaluate the credibility of the

witnesses, determine the weight given to witnesses’ testimony, and must reconcile all

conflicts in the evidence. State v. Odom, 928 S.W.2d 18, 23 (Tenn. 1996).

When reviewing issues regarding the sufficiency of the evidence, this court shall

not “reweigh or reevaluate the evidence.” Henley v. State, 960 S.W.2d 572, 578-79

(Tenn. 1997). The Tennessee Supreme Court has stated that “[a] guilty verdict by the

jury, approved by the trial court, accredits the testimony of the witnesses for the State and

resolves all conflicts in favor of the prosecution’s theory.” Bland, 958 S.W.2d at 659

(citing State v. Grace, 493 S.W.2d 474, 476 (Tenn. 1973)). A guilty verdict also

“removes the presumption of innocence and replaces it with a presumption of guilt, and

the defendant has the burden of illustrating why the evidence is insufficient to support the

jury’s verdict.” Id. (citing State v. Tuggle, 639 S.W.2d 913, 914 (Tenn. 1982)).

To convict the Defendant of aggravated kidnapping as charged in the indictment,

the State was required to prove that the Defendant falsely imprisoned the victim as

defined in Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-302, and the victim suffered bodily

injury as a result. T.C.A. § 39-13-304(a)(4). False imprisonment occurs when a person

knowingly removes or confines another unlawfully as to interfere substantially with the

other’s liberty. T.C.A. § 39-13-302(a). Whether the evidence presented establishes each

and every element of kidnapping, including whether the interference was substantial or

merely trivial, is a question for the jury. State v. White, 362 S.W.3d 559, 577 (Tenn.

2012).

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First, the Defendant argues that the State failed to establish the element of

substantial interference because during the course of the two-hour confinement, the

victim was free to move about the apartment and never attempted to escape until she and

the Defendant tumbled out the front door of the apartment. The State contends that it was

for the jury to decide if the interference with the victim’s liberty was substantial, and the

fact that the victim was able to move about her apartment and failed to make several

attempts to escape does not defeat the Defendant’s convictions. We agree with the State.

Viewed in the light most favorable to the State, the evidence is sufficient to sustain

the Defendant’s conviction of aggravated kidnapping. The proof established that the

victim suffered abuse at the hands of the Defendant for roughly two hours. Although the

victim was unable to recall how particular injuries occurred, she remembered the

Defendant hitting and biting her on the patio before passing out and awaking to the

Defendant pressing her against the kitchen wall. The victim testified that she attempted

to go upstairs “to get far away” and “create distance” from the Defendant, but he

followed her and ripped the bathroom vanity off the wall. She further recalled the

Defendant dragging her through the living room by her hair just before the two fell

through the front door, at which point the victim, “got up and snatched [her] head and

ran.” During her testimony, the victim made several comments indicating her desire to

leave the apartment. She testified that she tried to find her cell phone at one point

because she “wanted to call the police to come get [the Defendant] out of [her] apartment

so [she] c[ould] get out.” She said she could never escape because the Defendant would

not “let her . . . . [I]t was just constant battling trying to get from one point to another.”

Although the victim admitted that the only time she left is when she escaped through the

front door, she added, “I’d probably tried all night long, I just don’t remember.” The

victim’s testimony was further corroborated by her 911 call, during which she exclaimed

that she had been held against her will by the Defendant for over two hours.

Additionally, we must reject the Defendant’s claim that there was no substantial

interference with the victim’s liberty because she was free to move about the apartment

and failed to make multiple attempts to escape. This court has held that aggravated

kidnapping does not require a victim to be removed for particular distance or any

particular duration or place of confinement to establish substantial interference. State v.

Taylor, 63 S.W.3d 400, 408 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2001) (citing State v. Dixon, 957 S.W.2d

532, 535 (Tenn. 1997)). Moreover, a victim need not be confined to a single space or

attempt to escape. See State v. David Earl Scott, No. E2011-00707-CCA-R3-CD, 2012

WL 5503951, at *2-4, *8 (Tenn. Crim. App. Nov. 14, 2012), perm. app. denied (Tenn.

Mar. 5, 2013) (finding evidence sufficient to convict defendant of aggravated kidnapping

when victim was free to move about several areas of the home and never attempted to

escape for fear of leaving her children behind); State v. William Davidson Hamby, Jr.,

No. M2014-00593-CCA-R3-CD, 2015 WL 1897334, at *4 (Tenn. Crim. App. Apr. 27,

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2015), perm. app. denied (Tenn. Aug. 13, 2015) (victim was not required to attempt to

escape and risk provoking the defendant in order to demonstrate her desire to leave). The

jury was in the best position to evaluate and weigh the evidence presented, as well as

consider all lesser included offenses to the charged crime, and we will not disturb the

jury’s finding. We conclude that a rational juror could have found that the Defendant

substantially interfered with the victim’s liberty so as to satisfy the elements of

aggravated kidnapping beyond a reasonable doubt. The Defendant is not entitled to

relief.

Next, the Defendant suggests that any interference with the victim’s liberty was

only incidental to the domestic assault under State v. White, 362 S.W.3d 559 (Tenn.

2012). The State counters, and we agree, that the Defendant’s reliance on White is

misplaced.

In White, the Tennessee Supreme Court held that the kidnapping statutes do not

apply to a removal or confinement of a victim that is “essentially incidental” to that of an

accompanying felony, such as rape or robbery. Id. at 576-77, 581. “[T]he removal or

confinement [must have some] criminal significance above and beyond that necessary to

consummate some underlying offense[.]” Id. at 577. The court explained that when a

charge of kidnapping is coupled with another felony charge, trial courts must include jury

instructions necessary to afford the defendant proper constitutional due process

protection. Id. at 580. Ultimately, the determination of whether the evidence is sufficient

to establish aggravated kidnapping as a separate offense is a question for the jury

properly instructed under the law. Id. at 577.

Here, the Defendant does not suggest that the jury should have received the White

instruction. Instead, he argues that every assault contains an element of the restraint of

liberty and that if his conviction for aggravated kidnapping is permitted, the State would

then result to charging every assault case as an aggravated kidnapping. We disagree.

White is applied to cases where a defendant is charged with both kidnapping and an

accompanying felony such as rape or robbery of the same victim. In those cases, the

jury, after being given appropriate instructions, must decide if the kidnapping is

essentially incidental to accomplish the accompanying felony. In the case sub judice, the

Defendant was originally charged with both aggravated kidnapping and aggravated

assault. However, before trial, the State dismissed the aggravated assault charges and

amended the indictment to charge aggravated kidnapping.1 Accordingly, because the

Defendant was not charged with an accompany felony, White is not applicable. See State

1

The Defendant was originally indicted for aggravated kidnapping, two counts of aggravated

assault, interference with an emergency call, vandalism, and violation of an order of protection. The State

amended the indictment the morning of trial to charge the Defendant with aggravated kidnapping and

violation of an order of protection. The remaining charges were dismissed.

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v. Teats, 468 S.W.3d 495, 496 (Tenn. 2015) (holding that White is not applicable to a

kidnapping charge when a defendant is charged with kidnapping one victim and robbing

another). Therefore, the only determination here is whether the evidence was sufficient

to establish aggravated kidnapping, which as White acknowledged, is a question for the

jury. As thoroughly detailed above, the jury in this case found the evidence sufficient to

convict the Defendant as charged. Accordingly, the Defendant is not entitled to relief.

CONCLUSION

After review, it appears that judgment forms for counts 2 through 5 were never

entered. The record reflects that the Defendant was originally charged with aggravated

kidnapping (count 1), aggravated assault (counts 2 and 3), interference with an

emergency call (count 4), vandalism (count 5), and violation of an order of protection

(count 6). Before trial, the trial court dismissed counts 2 through 5 and renumbered the

remaining charges to reflect the charges as presented in this case. While the record

contains judgment forms for the case before us, it does not include the judgment forms

for the dismissed counts. Therefore, we remand for entry of judgment forms reflecting

the dismissed counts of the indictment. In all other respects, the judgments of the trial

court are affirmed.

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CAMILLE R. MCMULLEN, JUDGE

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