State of Tennessee v. Deandre Marrece Ellis

A Montgomery County jury convicted Defendant, Deandre Marrece Ellis, of second degree murder, tampering with evidence, and possession of a weapon by a convicted felon with a predicate felony involving force or violence, for which the trial court imposed an effective sentence of fifty-one years’ incarceration. In this direct appeal, Defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence as it relates to his conviction for tampering with evidence. He asserts that, when he placed the murder weapon in water inside a toilet tank in a friend’s apartment, he intended only to conceal his possession of the gun and that the State failed to prove that his intent was to hinder the police investigation by impairing the gun’s “verity, legibility, or availability as evidence.” Following a thorough review, we affirm Defendant’s conviction for tampering with evidence.