State of Tennessee v. Roberto Vasques, Kevin Joel Hernandez, Luis Martin Vasquez, Hector Alonzo, and Victor Hugo Garza

Summary

The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Criminal Appeals on all three presented issues: the trial evidence was sufficient to convict all five defendants of conspiracy to possess with intent to sell more than seventy pounds of marijuana within 1,000 feet of a school zone; the statutory waiver of lesser-included offense instructions under Tenn. Code Ann. Sec. 40-18-110 does not violate jury-trial or separation-of-powers protections; and, under an amplified 'may have resulted in a different judgment' coram nobis standard requiring satisfaction with the new evidence's veracity, defendant lack of fault, and a reasonable basis for a different result, new trials were sustained for Vasquez and Garza -- whose identifications rested heavily on TBI Agent Howell, a cocaine user who stole drugs from the evidence file -- while relief was denied to Vasques, Hernandez, and Alonzo, whom other officers independently placed at the scene. The court rejected both the State's stricter 'would have' standard and a literal mere-possibility reading of the statute, and held that impeachment evidence may support the writ. Justice Holder concurred in part and dissented in part, agreeing on sufficiency and the instruction issue but concluding the Howell impeachment evidence merited coram nobis relief for no defendant and that she would reverse the intermediate court's grant of new trials to Vasquez and Garza.