State of Tennessee v. Uel Pearson
Syllabus
The defendant, Uel Pearson, was convicted by a Gibson County jury of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, and employing a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony after having been previously convicted of a dangerous felony for which he received an effective term of life imprisonment plus thirty years. On appeal, the defendant argues that: (1) the evidence is insufficient to sustain his convictions (2) the trial court erred in excluding the recorded interviews of two witnesses and (3) the trial court erred in denying his motion for new trial based on juror misconduct. After reviewing the record and considering the applicable law, 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.
- holding that, in light of the government’s report that the defendant would be arriving shortly, it was error, and not harmless, to address the jury’s request for a read-back of testimony and to deliver an Allen charge in his absence
- holding it impermissible to proceed in a single-defendant case where court was informed that defendant’s absence because of police detention would likely be brief
- stating that Rule 43 was “explicitly intended to codify existing law concerning a defendant’s constitutional and common law rights to be present throughout trial” (internal quotation marks omitted)
- refusing to find voluntary waiver where court proceeded with the trial despite knowing of defendant's incarceration
- no waiver where defendant failed to appear in court because he was taken into police custody in connection with an unrelated crime
- public interest in proceeding with trial did not outweigh the defendant’s right to be present where court was informed — accurately — that the defendant was being officially detained and would be available shortly
Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).
Sourced from CourtListener / Free Law Project (CC0).
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