STATE OF TENNESSEE v. URSHAWN ERIC MILLER - Articles

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Posted by: Tanja Trezise on Dec 7, 2021

Head Comment: LEE filed a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.

Court: TN Supreme Court

Attorneys 1: Jeremy B. Epperson, District Public Defender (on appeal); George Morton Googe, District Public Defender, and Gregory D. Gookin, Assistant District Public Defender (at trial and on appeal), Jackson, Tennessee, for the appellant, Urshawn Eric Miller.

Attorneys 2: Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Andrée Sophia Blumstein, Solicitor General; Nicholas W. Spangler, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Jody Pickens, District Attorney General; and Shaun A. Brown and Al Earls, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

Judge(s): PAGE

A Madison County jury convicted the defendant, Urshawn Eric Miller, of first-degree premeditated murder and first-degree felony murder for fatally shooting a convenience store employee during an attempted robbery of the store. The jury also convicted the defendant of the attempted second-degree murder of another store employee and of attempted especially aggravated robbery, aggravated assault, employing a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony, evading arrest, and resisting arrest. The jury imposed the death penalty for the first-degree murder convictions. The trial court merged the felony murder conviction into the premeditated murder conviction and the aggravated assault conviction into the attempted second-degree murder conviction, and it imposed an effective thirty-year sentence for the remaining convictions to run concurrently with the death sentence. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the convictions and sentences but vacated the application of the felony murder aggravating circumstance as to the felony murder conviction. Upon our automatic review, we conclude: (1) the trial court properly ruled on challenges to certain jurors for cause during individual voir dire; (2) the evidence was sufficient to establish the defendant’s identity as the perpetrator and his guilt of the convicted offenses; (3) the trial court did not abuse its discretion by allowing the State to introduce a video recording of the defendant’s prior aggravated robbery during the penalty phase; (4) the death penalty generally, and lethal injection specifically, do not constitute cruel and unusual punishment; and (5) the death sentence satisfies our mandatory review pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-206. Accordingly, we affirm the defendant’s convictions and sentence of death; however, we reverse the portion of the intermediate court’s judgment vacating the application of the felony murder aggravating circumstance.