Caseflicks

Tennessee Supreme Court • 1996

State v. Reeves

916 S.W.2d 909 | 1996 Tenn. LEXIS 119

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Takeaway

In short, this case abandoned Tennessee’s narrow overt-act test and held that possession of crime materials at or near the intended scene can be a substantial step when the surrounding conduct strongly corroborates criminal intent.

Background

Twelve-year-old Tracie Reeves and her classmate, Molly Coffman, agreed by telephone to kill their homeroom teacher, Janice Geiger, by putting rat poison in her drink. They also planned to take Geiger’s car and travel to the Smoky Mountains. Reeves contacted a high-school student and asked him to drive the car, but he refused.

The next morning, Coffman brought rat poison to school in her purse and told another student about the plan. That student alerted school personnel. When Geiger entered her classroom, she saw Reeves and Coffman leaning over her desk near her coffee cup; the girls giggled and returned to their seats. Officials soon found the rat poison in Coffman’s purse. Both girls gave written statements describing the poisoning and car-theft plan.

The juvenile court found Reeves delinquent. On appeal to circuit court, a jury found that she had attempted to commit second-degree murder under Tennessee’s criminal-attempt statute, and the court affirmed the delinquency adjudication and committed the girls to the Department of Youth Development for an indefinite period. The Court of Appeals affirmed, and the Tennessee Supreme Court granted review to interpret the substantially revised 1989 attempt statute.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether Tennessee’s 1989 criminal-attempt statute retained the former distinction between noncriminal “mere preparation” and an overt act constituting the crime’s “act itself.”

Holding

No. The statute replaces the former rigid overt-act approach with a substantial-step inquiry, although it does not expressly adopt every example in the Model Penal Code.

Reasoning

Before 1989, Tennessee required proof of specific intent, an overt act toward the crime, and failure to complete the crime. Under cases such as Dupuy v. State, courts narrowly separated mere preparation from a direct movement toward completion. That approach could treat even highly dangerous conduct as noncriminal preparation unless the defendant had nearly completed the offense.

The 1989 statute instead makes criminal attempt turn on whether a defendant, acting with the culpability required for the underlying offense, takes a substantial step toward completing it. The statute further requires that the defendant’s entire course of conduct corroborate the intent to commit the offense.

The statute closely tracks the Model Penal Code, but Tennessee omitted the Model Code’s enumerated examples of conduct that may qualify as substantial steps. The Court therefore declined to hold that the legislature had adopted those examples wholesale.

Still, the statutory change rejected Dupuy’s sharp preparation-versus-act distinction. That distinction was difficult to apply because preparation and attempt differ by degree rather than by a clear conceptual line. It also frustrated attempt law’s preventive purpose by withholding criminal liability until a dangerous actor was nearly able to complete the offense.

Issue #2

Whether Reeves’s and Coffman’s conduct amounted to a substantial step toward second-degree murder under Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-12-101.

Holding

Yes. Possessing poison at or near the planned crime scene, where it served no lawful purpose and strongly corroborated the planned murder, permitted the jury to find a substantial step.

Reasoning

The Court adopted a fact-specific rule: when an actor possesses materials intended for use in a crime at or near the contemplated crime scene, and the materials have no lawful purpose under the circumstances, a jury may find a substantial step if that conduct strongly corroborates the actor’s overall criminal purpose.

The girls did more than discuss an abstract idea. They agreed to poison their teacher, arranged for poison to be brought to school, sought a driver for the teacher’s car, and came to the teacher’s desk with the poison available nearby. Their written statements further confirmed the planned killing and subsequent theft of the car.

The Court emphasized the particular danger of poisoning. Once poison is secretly put into a drink or other container, the intended victim may have no meaningful chance to protect herself. A rule requiring the poison actually to be placed in the cup before attempt liability could attach would undermine the law’s preventive function.

Because the poison was brought to the classroom for the planned murder and the surrounding conduct strongly corroborated the criminal purpose, the evidence allowed the jury to find that Reeves had taken a substantial step. The Court therefore affirmed the delinquency adjudication.

Dissents

Justice Birch

Reasoning

Justice Birch agreed that the Court should abandon Dupuy’s rigid overt-act rule and agreed with the majority’s general substantial-step standard. But he concluded that the evidence did not satisfy that standard in this case.

Under Tennessee Rule of Appellate Procedure 13(e), a guilty finding must be set aside if no rational factfinder could find every essential element beyond a reasonable doubt. In Justice Birch’s view, the record had to be assessed for whether the girls’ entire course of conduct strongly corroborated an intent to commit second-degree murder.

Justice Birch concluded that the conduct of these two twelve-year-old girls was not, as a matter of law, strongly corroborative of an actual intent to murder their teacher. He would therefore have found the evidence insufficient and reversed the attempt-based delinquency finding.