IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE
AT NASHVILLE FILED
NOVEMBER 1997 SESSION
January 14, 1998
Cecil W. Crowson
Appellate Court Clerk
STATE OF TENNESSEE, )
) C.C.A. NO. 01C01-9606-CC-00260
Appellee, )
) MONTGOMERY COUNTY
VS. )
) HON. ROBERT W. WEDEMEYER,
ALONZO TONY WATSON, ) JUDGE
)
Appellant. ) (Forgery; robbery; evading arrest)
FOR THE APPELLANT: FOR THE APPELLEE:
PAULA OGLE BLAIR JOHN KNOX WALKUP
176 2nd Ave. N. Attorney General & Reporter
Suite 406
Nashville, TN 37201 LISA A. NAYLOR
(On appeal) Asst. Attorney General
450 James Robertson Pkwy.
GREGORY D. SMITH Nashville, TN 37243-0493
One Public Square
Suite 134 JOHN CARNEY
Clarksville, TN 37040 District Attorney General
(At trial)
WILLIAM CLOUD
Asst. District Attorney General
204 Franklin St.
Suite 200
Clarksville, TN 37040
OPINION FILED:____________________
AFFIRMED
JOHN H. PEAY,
Judge
OPINION
The defendant was charged with forgery, passing a forged instrument,
robbery and evading arrest. A jury convicted him of all but the passing a forged
instrument charge, which was dismissed. He was sentenced as a Range II multiple
offender to two years incarceration on the forgery conviction; six years incarceration on
the robbery; and eleven months, twenty-nine days in the workhouse for evading arrest.
In this appeal as of right, the defendant contends that the evidence is insufficient to
support his convictions; that the State's proof that he committed the evading arrest
offense on January 20, 1995, is at fatal variance with the January 11, 1995, date alleged
in the indictment; that the State failed to prove venue; and that the trial court erred in
refusing to give certain special jury instructions. Upon our review of the record, we affirm
the judgment below.
FACTS
A. Forgery
Steve Darnell testified that he had signed, as drawer, a check in the amount
of five hundred forty-four dollars and fifty-eight cents ($544.58) payable to Robert
Lafferty; Robert Lafferty testified that he had never received it and had not signed the
“Robert Lafferty” on the back of the check. The check was introduced as an exhibit to
Darnell's testimony (“the Lafferty check”). Fannie Barrett testified that a black male had
come into Brenner's, the store in which she worked, accompanied by one of the store's
customers, Mack Watkins. The black male had a check payable to Robert Lafferty which
he was trying to negotiate to the store. Barrett asked the man for some identification and
he responded that he did not have any. Barrett then called the office on whose account
the check was drawn and established that Lafferty was a white male. Realizing that the
2
man with the check was not Lafferty, Barrett “gave him the check back and told him I
could not cash it for him.”
Mack Watkins, Jr., testified that he had taken the defendant to the furniture
store at which Barrett worked, and that the defendant had had the Lafferty check. He
testified that, since he had an account there, he “was going to see would she cash [the
Lafferty check] on my word.” He testified that the defendant had passed the check to
Barrett or one of the clerks and that they had given it back to him, “Because he didn't
have proper identification.” Following this, he testified, he had driven the defendant to
Bo and Bob's.
Bobby Joe Adkins testified that he owned Bo and Bob's Bi-Rite. When
shown the Lafferty check at trial, he testified that the defendant had brought it into his
store to cash it. The defendant had presented the check as payment for approximately
one hundred dollars ($100.00) worth of groceries. Adkins' daughter, who was the cashier
at the time, accepted the check.
Grant R. Sperry, testifying as an expert witness in forensic document
analysis, stated that, in his opinion, the defendant “probably wrote the Robert Lafferty
endorsement signature” which appeared on the back of the Lafferty check. He also
testified that the term “probably” put the likelihood “in the area of 95 to 98%.” Steven J.
Kasarsky, testifying as an expert witness in forensic latent fingerprint analysis, stated that
the defendant's palm print was on the Lafferty check.
B. Robbery
Loretta Nagey, an employee of Nagey's Market, testified that the defendant
3
had come into the store on January 11, 1995, and “got a great big pile of groceries.” She
testified that he had given her a check,1 telling her “it was on Andy Phillips.” As she
handed the money to the defendant, she looked at the check and then told him “this
check is not no good.” She testified that she had told him to give the money back to her,
he did, and then “he snatched it back, and snatched the check back.” He subsequently
ran out of the store. When asked, “What was your feeling when he grabbed the money?”
Nagey responded, “It unnerved me. . . . I got scared. I didn't know what he had in his
pocket.”
C. Evading Arrest
Vernon Mosley, investigator with the Montgomery County Sheriff's
Department, testified that he had followed a vehicle which he suspected the defendant
to be driving and turned on his blue grill lights. When the vehicle did not stop
immediately, he turned on his siren. The vehicle pulled over and the defendant got out.
According to Mosley, “As he stepped out it appeared to me he was coming back toward
where I was at. . . . I stepped out of the vehicle and said,