State v. Stevens

78 S.W.3d 817 (2002)

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State v. Stevens

Tennessee Supreme Court
78 S.W.3d 817 (2002)

JC

Facts

William Stevens (defendant) was convicted by the state of Tennessee of premeditated first-degree murder and especially aggravated robbery. William hired an 18-year-old neighbor, Corey Milliken, to kill William’s wife, Sandra, and Sandra’s mother, Myrtle Wilson, and to make the murders look as if they had been committed as part of a burglary. Milliken had known William for about a year. William had initially approached Milliken and Milliken’s brother about shooting William’s ex-wife, Vickie, but later had a new plan. After the incident in question, police arrived and noticed that Milliken had blood on his t-shirt, under his nails, and had gouge marks on his wrist and his cheek. Milliken eventually confessed to the murders. After police checked the loose underpinning on a nearby trailer, the officers found a few items of jewelry, an eight-inch butcher or kitchen knife, a camera bag, and a blood-stained T-shirt inside a canvas bag. Detectives noticed no signs of forced entry into the Stevens’ home and little sign of any struggle. Around Sandra’s dead body were some pornographic magazines and nude photos of her, apparently taken by William during their marriage. Those items had no blood upon them. At trial, William presented evidence of Milliken’s sexual infatuation with Sandra. William tried to argue that Milliken had murdered Sandra as an act of sexual aggression. William used an expert witness, Gregg McCrary, who wanted to testify to the behavior and motivation of Milliken based on the crime scene. McCrary had worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for 25 years and advised that the FBI had studied such a crime-scene-based profile with a 75 to 80 percent success rate indicated. McCrary acknowledged that his crime-scene analysis could not be tested with controlled experiments. The government argued that McCrary should be excluded under Tennessee’s version of Federal Rule of Evidence 702, as McCrary’s testimony lacked trustworthiness or reliability. The court allowed McCrary to testify but limited his testimony to the staging of the crime scene and the possibility that more than one person committed the murders. After William’s conviction, he appealed, arguing that refusing to allow McCrary to testify about behavioral links between the crime scene and Milliken was error.

Rule of Law

Issue

Holding and Reasoning (Barker, J.)

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