State of Tennessee v. Cortez Griffin

The defendant, Cortez Griffin, and two co-defendants, Marquette Milan and Preston Deener, broke into a rooming house to rob the victim, Lannie McMillan, who was fatally shot. A grand jury indicted the defendant on charges of first degree murder, felony murder, and especially aggravated  robbery. The trial court sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment and a concurrent sentence of twenty years for his conviction of especially aggravated robbery. The defendant has appealed   raising issues which we summarize as follows: (1) whether the trial court erred in denying the defendant’s motion to suppress his statements which he asserts were not voluntary, were not made subsequent to a intelligent, knowing, and voluntary waiver of rights, were not recorded and were obtained subsequent to unlawful arrests; (2) whether the trial court erred in not granting a mistrial after a police officer testified regarding the content of a co-defendant’s statement; (3) whether the trial court erred in denying the defendant’s motion to dismiss the felony murder charge; and (4) whether the trial court erred in allowing the testimony of a police officer that it was common for a defendant to minimize his or her role in a crime. Upon review of the record and the parties’ briefs, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.