# State of Tennessee v. Howard Hawk Willis

> Tennessee Supreme Court · July 6, 2016 · 496 S.W.3d 653

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9834678

## Case

- **Full name:** STATE of Tennessee v. Howard Hawk WILLIS
- **Court:** Tennessee Supreme Court
- **Decided:** July 6, 2016
- **Citations:** 496 S.W.3d 653; 2016 Tenn. LEXIS 405
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Lee
- **Judges:** Justice Holly Kirby
- **Cited by:** 109 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9834678

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that to establish agency, a defendant must show that the State “manifested assent, either explicitly or implicitly, to have the cooperating witness act as a government agent, and that the State had some level of control over the witness’s actions with respect to the de…
- concluding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting into evidence graphic and “quite disturbing” color photographs of the victim’s decapitated head, severed hands, and “headless and handless body”
- holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting “quite disturbing” photographs, including one of a “severed and - 29 - severely decomposed head” because they showed premeditation
- stating "that federal cases applying the Fourth Amendment should be regarded as 'particularly persuasive' " (quoting State v. Hayes , 188 S.W.3d 505, 511 (Tenn. 2006) )
- stating “that federal cases applying the Fourth Amendment should be regarded as ‘particularly persuasive’” (quoting State v. Hayes, 188 S.W.3d 505, 511 (Tenn. 2006))

## Opinion text

*762 SHARON G. LEE, C.J.,
concurring.
I concur fully with the Court’s opinion except for the analysis in Section 11(E)(4) regarding the proportionality review. In 1997, this Court narrowed the scope of the proportionality review required by Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-206(c)(1)(D) by limiting its consideration to only those cases in which the death penalty had been sought. State v. Bland, 958 S.W.2d 651, 666 (Tenn.1997). A majority of this Court reaffirmed this truncated approach in State v. Pruitt, 415 S.W.3d 180, 217 (Tenn.2013). In Pruitt , I joined Justice William C. Koch, Jr. in dissenting from the Court’s decision to continue following the Bland approach, as it improperly narrows the proportionality review required by Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-206(c)(1)(D). Prui tt, 415 S.W.3d at 230 (Koch and Lee, JJ., concurring and dissenting). We determined that the Court should return to its pre-Bland proportionality analysis by considering “all first degree murder cases in which life imprisonment or a sentence of death has been imposed” and focusing on whether the case under review more closely resembles cases that have resulted in the imposition of the death penalty than those that have not. Id. at 230-31 (Koch and Lee, JJ., concurring and dissenting).
I have' performed the broader, pre- Bland review in this case, as I find it more consistent with the requirement of Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-206(c)(1)(D). Based on a review of all similar first degree murder cases, including those in which the death penalty was not sought, I have concluded that Mr. Willis’s personal background and the nature of the capital crime he committed closely resemble the personal backgrounds and the crimes committed by other persons who have received a death sentence. Accordingly, as required by Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-206(c)(l)(D) and based on the facts in this record, I find that Mr. Willis’s death sentence is “[neither] excessive [n]or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the nature of the crime and the defendant.”

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9834678. Public record. Not legal advice.