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State v. Dean9/28/2001
The defendant was convicted of aggravated rape and sentenced to forty years as a violent offender. He timely appealed, alleging, inter alia, that the trial court erred in not suppressing a confession obtained, following his warrantless arrest, after he had been jailed for five days without a determination of probable cause; in allowing DNA results into evidence; and in permitting a forensic nurse examiner to testify as a keeper of the sexual assault resource center records. Based upon our review, we conclude that testimony regarding the records of the Memphis Sexual Assault Resource Center was properly admitted as business records testimony and that the DNA evidence was properly admitted, as well. We conclude that the defendant's confinement violated his Fourth Amendment rights and that his confession should have been suppressed. However, this error was harmless in light of the other evidence. Accordingly, we affirm the conviction.
Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Criminal Court Affirmed
Alan E. Glenn, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which David G. Hayes and Jerry L. Smith, JJ., joined.
OPINION
The defendant, Anthony H. Dean, was convicted in the Shelby County Criminal Court of aggravated rape and sentenced to forty years imprisonment as a violent offender. In his appeal, he presents the following issues:
I. The evidence of appellant's identity as the culprit is insufficient to support the verdict beyond a reasonable doubt.
II. The trial judge erred in failing to suppress appellant's confession and DNA evidence that was the "fruit of the poisonous tree" of his illegal detention without prompt presentation before a magistrate as required by the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article I, Section 7 of the Tennessee Constitution.
III. The trial judge erred in allowing into evidence the business records of the Sexual Assault Resource Center as business records when they were made for the sole purpose of litigation.
IV. The trial judge erred in refusing to strike the testimony concerning the DNA testing of the appellant when the State failed to satisfy the "chain of evidence" requirement for admissibility of such evidence.
V. The errors which allowed into evidence both the alleged confession and the DNA testimony were such that their cumulative effect cannot be considered harmless error.
VI. The trial judge misapplied the enhancement factors in sentencing appellant to the maximum sentence of 40 years.
We conclude that the defendant's confession, taken on the fifth day of his confinement, following his warrantless arrest, without a determination of probable cause, was in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights although his rights were not violated by the taking of a DNA sample from him, pursuant to a search warrant, while he was incarcerated. Accordingly, it was error to admit the confession during the trial but not the DNA evidence. We further conclude that there was a sufficient showing as to the chain of custody of the defendant's blood sample resulting in testimony that the defendant's DNA matched the semen sample from the victim. As a result, we find that the admission of the confession was harmless. Although the trial court relied upon two inapplicable enhancement factors, the remaining factors justify the imposition of the sentence. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.
DISCUSSION
The victim, R.G., who was 92 years old at the time of trial, testified that as of the day of the crime, August 1, 1998, she was 89 years old, turning 90 about two weeks later. She said that sh
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