State of Tennessee v. Benjamin Brown

The defendant, Benjamin Brown, was convicted by a Shelby County Criminal Court jury of first degree felony murder in the perpetration of aggravated child abuse and aggravated child abuse. For the felony murder conviction, he was sentenced as a violent offender to life in the Department of Correction, and for the aggravated child abuse conviction he was sentenced to twenty-five years, to be served concurrently. In this direct appeal, he claims (1) that the trial court improperly allowed evidence of the defendant’s bad acts without conducting a hearing as required by Tennessee Rule of Evidence 404(b), (2) that the trial court committed plain error in allowing a state’s expert witness to testify about the victim’s cause of death without establishing a proper foundation, (3) that the court erred in failing to replace a juror who indicated she had some knowledge of one of the state’s witnesses, (4) that the trial court failed to give instructions on lesser offenses, and (5) that he is entitled to a new trial based upon prosecutorial misconduct during closing argument. We hold that although the state made an improper rebuttal argument, the error was harmless, and the remaining issues are without merit. We affirm the judgments of the trial court.