State of Tennessee v. John Patrick Henretta

This capital case involves the 1988 rape, murder, robbery, and kidnapping of a thrift store employee in Cleveland, Tennessee. A Bradley County jury convicted the defendant of premeditated murder, felony murder, two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, two counts of aggravated rape, and two counts of aggravated kidnapping. The trial court merged the premeditated murder and felony murder convictions into a single conviction for which the jury imposed a sentence of death after hearing proof of aggravating and mitigating circumstances. The trial court merged the remaining convictions into a single conviction for each offense and imposed concurrent sentences of forty-five years for robbery with a deadly weapon, fifty years for aggravated kidnapping, and fifty years for aggravated rape, all concurrent with the sentence of death. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the defendant's convictions and sentences. On automatic appeal pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-206(a)(1), we have considered all issues raised by the defendant, including the following issues, which we designated for oral argument: (1) whether the trial court erred in having insufficient regard for the heightened standard of due process in capital cases by failing to grant a mistrial, by allowing prosecutorial argument on future dangerousness while not instructing the jury on the effect of their failure to agree or ensuring that the jury knew the defendant would never leave prison alive, and by not sua sponte instructing the jury on the defense of voluntary intoxication; (2) whether the defendant is entitled to relief for pre-indictment delay in filing the notice of intent to seek the death penalty and/or for the trial court's refusal to dismiss the indictment with prejudice because the State violated the anti-shuttling provisions of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers; (3) whether the search of the defendant at the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas was defective such that its fruits should have been suppressed; and (4) whether the sentence of death is disproportionate under the review mandated by Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-206(c)(1) (2006). We conclude that none of the issues presented entitle the defendant to relief and, therefore, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals.