State of Tennessee v. Michael M. Cook

Syllabus

The defendant, Michael M. Cook, was convicted of one count of aggravated rape and two counts of aggravated kidnapping for which he received an effective term of twenty-five years' incarceration. On appeal, the defendant argues that: (1) police contamination of the condom that yielded the defendant's DNA profile resulted in a fundamentally unfair trial under State v. Ferguson, 2 S.W.3d 912 (Tenn. 1999) (2) the trial court erred in not requiring chain of custody after the police mispackaged the condom in a way that degrades DNA (3) the identification of the defendant's voice based on his testimony at the Momon hearing resulted in a fundamentally unfair trial (4) the prosecution commented on the defendant's silence by arguing the defendant's rights prevented a non-suggestive voice identification (5) improper argument by the State throughout trial affected the verdict (6) the trial court failed to give a full and complete charge of the law by not instructing the jury on identification and other instructions requested by the defendant and (7) the cumulative errors in the case warrant reversal. Following a thorough review of the record, the briefs, and oral arguments of the parties, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.