State of Tennessee v. Kenneth Paul Dykas

After a lengthy trial, a Rutherford County jury found the defendant, Kenneth Paul Dykas, guilty of first-degree murder, especially aggravated robbery, and conspiracy to commit especially aggravated robbery. Following a separate penalty trial on the first-degree murder conviction, the same jury sentenced the defendant to life without the possibility of parole, and the trial court subsequently sentenced the defendant as a Range I offender to eleven years on the conspiracy conviction and as a violent offender to 24 years on the especially aggravated robbery conviction. The trial-court- imposed sentences were ordered to run concurrently with one another but consecutively to the first- degree murder sentence. In this appeal, the defendant complains that the evidence is insufficient, that numerous errors in the jury selection process taint his convictions, that DNA test results were improperly admitted, that the state suppressed exculpatory evidence about its jailhouse informant who testified at trial, and that consecutive sentencing was not justified. After a comprehensive review of the record, the briefs of the parties, and the applicable law, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.