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State v. Davidson5/12/2000
A jury found the defendant guilty of two second degree murders, and he received two consecutive 25 year sentences. Identification of the bodies and cause of death were difficult because the bodies had been burned. Sufficient evidence supports the convictions and the sentences. Any irregularity in impaneling the jury did not result in prejudice to this defendant. The trial court did not err in admitting a witness' previous preliminary hearing testimony, which contained an audiotaped interview of that witness who experienced memory failure at trial. The trial court also correctly allowed the state to play an audiotaped interview of another witness, offered in response to the defendant's allegations that the witness had been coerced at the interview. The judgment from the trial court is affirmed.
Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Criminal Court Affirmed
Williams, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which Peay and Welles, JJ., joined.
OPINION
The defendant, Robbie Davidson, appeals from Pickett County convictions of two counts of second degree murder and two 25 year sentences, imposed consecutively. He asserts that:
(1) The evidence was insufficient to support the convictions;
(2) the impaneled jury was not fair and impartial;
(3) the trial court erroneously admitted certain evidence; and
(4) the trial court improperly sentenced the defendant. After review, we affirm the judgment, convictions, and sentences from the trial court.
FACTS
From a jury verdict of guilty, we review the facts in a light most favorable to the state. On August 29, 1995, employees of the Pickett County Highway Department found a burned vehicle in an area known as Half Moon Hole. The vehicle, a two-door Buick Riviera registered to Bethel Ray Hill, Sr., contained the skeletal remains of one male and one female.
Faculty members of the Anthropology Department of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville testified to the identity of the two skeletal remains. A dental record examination positively identified one of the skeletal remains as those of a female, Lorraine Whittenburg. This victim's mother also identified jewelry found within those remains belonging to Lorraine Whittenburg. Although not as definitive as the identification of the female victim, evidence from an ankle bone and dental records revealed that the other skeletal remains were those of a male, Bud Hill.
The forensic anthropologists testified that intense heat had altered both remains and thus precluded positive determination of the causes of death. They could determine, however, that the male's body had been inverted, with his feet toward the rear of the vehicle. The female's head was in the floor of the passenger side. The position of the bodies would have allowed one to drive the vehicle with the bodies in the front seat. The male's skull had been shattered, whereas the female's was not. Expert testimony established that this shattering could have resulted from internal explosion, due to the extreme heat. This shattering was also consistent, however, with a gunshot wound to the head, and forensic examination identified beveling, consistent with bullet entry, on fragments of that particular skull. The examination also identified two radioplasties, or artifacts indicative of lead or other metal from a projectile entering the male's skull.
Witnesses established that both victims were with the defendant on August 27, 1995, the last day either victim was seen alive. Donna Logan testified that at approximately 7:45 p.m. she left Lorraine Whittenburg, Bud Hill, and the defendant. Be
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