Jeffrey Wayne Robertson v. State of Tennessee

The petitioner, Jeffery Wayne Robertson, was convicted in 1998 of first degree premeditated murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.  His conviction was affirmed on direct appeal.  State v. Robertson, 130 S.W.3d 842, 844 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2003).  Subsequently, he filed a petition for post-conviction relief, one of the issues raised being that trial counsel was ineffective for not challenging “expert testimony about the results of a Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis (‘CBLA’) performed on evidence gathered by law enforcement.”  Jeffrey Wayne Robertson v. State, No. M2007-01378-CCA-R3-PC, 2009 WL 277073, at *9 (Tenn. Crim. App. Feb. 5, 2009), perm. app. denied (Tenn. June 15, 2009).  Unsuccessful with that argument, he then raised a similar claim in a petition for writ of error coram nobis, the denial of which is the basis for this appeal.  In that petition, he again focused on the CBLA evidence at his trial, pointing this time to the “newly discovered evidence” that the FBI “suspended performing ‘bullet lead analysis’ in 2004 and ceased entirely performing such examinations and providing such testimony in 2005.”  The coram nobis court denied the petition, concluding that the CBLA evidence issue had previously been argued and the only newly discovered evidence was the fact that the FBI was no longer using the test.  Following our review of the record, we affirm the dismissal of the petition.