concluding that evidence was sufficient to - 10 - establish first degree murder when the defendant fired a deadly weapon on four unarmed victims, there was no provocation, the Defendant failed to render aid, and the Defendant fired a second, fatal bullet after injuring one of the victims
How later courts described this case
- concluding that evidence was sufficient to - 10 - establish first degree murder when the defendant fired a deadly weapon on four unarmed victims, there was no provocation, the Defendant failed to render aid, and the Defendant fired a second, fatal bullet after injuring one of the victims
- “Probable cause exists when at the time of the arrest, the facts and circumstances within the knowledge of the officers, and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information, are sufficient to warrant a prudent person in believing that the defendant had committed or was committing an offense.” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)
- “Any delay [absent the defendant’s showing that it was caused by an improper purpose] . . . would not have ripened to a Gerstein violation until the duration exceeded forty-eight hours because it was supported by probable cause.”
- “Whether the police possessed probable cause requires consideration of the ‘collective knowledge that law enforcement possessed at the time of the arrest . . . .’” (quoting State v. Bishop, 431 S.W.3d 22, 36 (Tenn. 2014)
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Sharon G. Lee, J., concurring.
I concur in the Court’s opinion except for the analysis 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)(l)(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 narrowed the proportionality review required by Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-206(c)(1)(D). Pruitt, 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 similar first degree murder cases, including those in which the death penalty was not sought, I have concluded that Mr. Clayton’s personal background and the nature of the crimes he committed closely resemble the personal backgrounds and the crimes committed by other persons who have received a death sentence than those that have not. 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, Clayton’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.”