State v. Bondurant3/20/1998
omplice testimony because a defendant cannot be convicted on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice. See State v. McKnight, 900 S.W.2d 36, 47 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1994), perm. app. denied (Tenn. 1995); Prince v. State, 529 S.W.2d 729, 732 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1975). "The corroborative evidence must of its own force, independently of the accomplice's testimony, tend to connect the defendant with the commission of the crime." Sherrill v. State, 204 Tenn. 427, 435, 321 S.W.2d 811, 815 (1959). To be corroborative, the evidence need not be adequate in and of itself to convict. McKinney v. State, 552 S.W.2d 787, 789 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1977). Only slight circumstances are required to furnish the necessary corroboration. Garton v. State, 206 Tenn. 79, 87, 332 S.W.2d 169, 175 (1960). The sufficiency of the corroboration is a jury determination, and this court may not substitute its judgment for that of the fact finder. State v. Copeland, 677 S.W.2d 471, 475 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1984). In the present case, we find that Denise's testimony was corroborated sufficiently.
As to premeditation, the proof showed that the defendant's wallet was stolen about a month before the victim disappeared. The defendant acknowledged that at the time, he thought the victim had taken his wallet and confronted him the night it disappeared. Although the defendant claimed that everything went back to normal after this confrontation, Strickland, a co-worker, testified that after the wallet incident, he started giving the victim a ride to work, and the defendant said that he and Pete were going to pull the victim from Strickland's car. When the wallet disappeared, the defendant told Denise that he believed the victim stole it and that no one steals from him or "little Matthew."
The day after the murder, the defendant told Denise that he started thinking about the wallet, Matthew's disability check, and the victim cheating at cards before he beat the unarmed victim with a child's rocking chair until there was nothing left but a small piece of the chair. The defendant continued beating the victim and telling him no one steals from "little Matthew" thirty minutes after the victim was dead. After the murder, the defendant made similar comments to co-workers about how no one would steal from him or Matthew and get away with it.
In Brown, 836 S.W.2d at 542, our supreme court held that repeated blows, by themselves, were insufficient to support a Conclusion that a killing was premeditated. However, other circumstances, such as a declared intent to kill or the use of a deadly weapon, are relevant to premeditation. Id. at 541; State v. Burlison, 868 S.W.2d 713, 718 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1993). In this case, the defendant's statements of intent support the jury's finding of premeditation.
The defendant's actions immediately after the killing support the jury's finding of deliberation. In State v. West, 844 S.W.2d at 148, the supreme court noted that "almness immediately after a killing may be evidence of a cool, dispassionate, premeditated murder" (citations omitted). According to Denise's testimony, the defendant put the victim's body in the bathtub after he finished beating him. Then, the defendant called his brother to have him come over and help cut up the body so that it could be hauled to Westpoint, where it was burned. See e.g., State v. Glenn Bernard Mann, No. 02C01-9502-CC-00046, slip op. at 10 (Tenn. Crim. App., Jackson, Aug. 16, 1996); Tenn. R. Sup. Ct. 12(2) appeal pending (Tenn. 1996); State v. William Singleton, Jr., No. 03C01-9406-CR-00221, slip op. at 6-8 (Tenn. Crim. App., at Knoxville, March 13, 1995), perm. app. denied (Tenn. 1995).
Accordingly, we find that the evidence in the record was s
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