State of Tennessee v. Quentin Dean Bird
Syllabus
The Defendant, Quentin Dean Bird, was convicted by a Montgomery County Circuit Court jury of two counts of first degree premeditated murder. See T.C.A. § 39-13-202(a)(1) (2014) (subsequently amended). The jury imposed sentences of life without the possibility of parole, which the trial court ordered to be served consecutively to each other. On appeal, the Defendant contends that (1) he was deprived of his right to equal protection under the law when the State exercised a peremptory challenge against a black prospective juror without articulating a valid race-neutral reason, (2) the trial court erred in admitting graphic autopsy photographs, (3) the sentence of life without parole for the murder of one of the victims was excessive and constituted double jeopardy because the facts used to establish the enhancement factor were also used to enhance the sentence for the murder of the second victim, and (4) the trial court erred in imposing consecutive sentences based upon its finding that the Defendant was a dangerous offender. We affirm the judgments of the trial court.
How courts have described this case
Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.
- “Identification testimony from a police officer who is so designated increase [d] the potential for inappropriate prejudice to the defendant”
- “Identification testimony from a police officer who is so designated increases the potential for inappropriate prejudice to the defendant.”
- image quality not \so unmistakably clear or so hopelessly obscure that the witness is no better-suited than the jury to make the identification\ [citation omitted]
- officer with \sufficiently relevant familiarity\ could identify defendant even though he was not eyewitness to events captured on videotape
- police officer properly allowed to identify defendant in surveillance videotape where picture quality poor, 11 officer knew defendant well socially, and defendant had changed his appearance
- witness's identification of an individual based on his familiarity with the defendant properly admitted because, inter alia, videotape of crime was \of poor quality although not 'hopelessly obscure' \
Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).
Judges: Judge Robert H. Montgomery Jr.
Read full opinion on CourtListenerSourced from CourtListener / Free Law Project (CC0).
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