Edward Thomas Kendrick III v. State of Tennessee

This case presents an appeal to this court after remand by order of the Tennessee Supreme Court. The Petitioner, Edward Thomas Kendrick III,1 was convicted by a jury of the first degree premeditated murder of his wife. Subsequently, the Petitioner filed for post-conviction relief, raising, inter alia, numerous claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. After a hearing, the post-conviction court denied relief, and the Petitioner appealed. On appeal, a panel of this court granted the Petitioner post-conviction relief, concluding that he had established that he received the ineffective assistance of counsel at trial due to (1) trial counsel‘s failure to offer expert proof about the trigger mechanism in the rifle, which was known to cause accidental shootings; and (2) trial counsel‘s failure to seek to admit, as excited utterances, out-of-court statements by a crime-scene investigator made to his fellow officers after he shot himself in the foot with the Petitioner‘s rifle. Our supreme court disagreed, reversing our conclusion that the Petitioner received ineffective assistance from his trial counsel with regard to these two issues. The case has now been remanded to us for consideration of the issues that were pretermitted by this court after finding the two issues to be meritorious. Those pretermitted issues are as follows: (1) whether trial counsel erred by waiving the Petitioner‘s attorney-client privilege with his divorce attorney and, in so doing, allowed the State to insinuate adultery as a motive for the shooting; (2) whether trial counsel was ineffective for failing to call the Petitioner‘s cousin, Randall Leftwich, to testify about the Petitioner‘s activities on the day of the shooting and about his discovery of cabbage simmering on the Petitioner‘s stove immediately following the shooting; (3) whether trial counsel was ineffective when he ―opened the door‖ on direct examination of the Petitioner for the State to inquire about additional misdemeanor convictions on cross-examination that had not been previously admissible; (4) whether trial counsel and appellate counsel were ineffective for failing to adequately challenge Lennell Shepheard‘s testimony that the Petitioner stood over the victim‘s body and said "I told you so" six times; (5) whether trial counsel was ineffective for failing to call Officer William Lapoint to testify about the Petitioner‘s "very distraught" demeanor at the airport just after the shooting; (6) whether trial counsel and appellate counsel were ineffective when they did not object or raise on appeal the issue of Detective Mark Rawlston‘s volunteered testimony that the Petitioner never told him that the gun accidentally discharged when interviewed in the back of a patrol car at the airport; (7) whether trial counsel‘s failure to seek curative measures for a security officer‘s, Ms. Martha Maston, surprise testimony about the Petitioner‘s daughter‘s statement at the airport was ineffective; and (8) whether the cumulative impact of counsels‘ errors entitle him to relief. After consideration of these remaining issues, we affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court denying post-conviction relief.