STATE OF TENNESSEE v. LAWRENCE EUGENE ALLEN

The primary issue in this case involves the State’s delayed disclosure of obviously exculpatory evidence. On June 18, 2015, Lawrence Eugene Allen, Defendant, was arrested for aggravated rape and domestic assault of his wife, Kimberly Allen. The charges were based primarily on Ms. Allen’s statement to Detective Dustin Fait that Defendant struck her and penetrated her with his hand. On June 22, 2015, the day before the original setting of the preliminary hearing, Ms. Allen sent two emails to Detective Fait. In the first email, Ms. Allen stated that Defendant did not rape her. She claimed that she had a consensual sexual encounter with an unknown man in his vehicle outside a bar in Nashville during the early morning hours of June 18, 2015. After numerous continuances, a preliminary hearing was finally held on March 18, 2016. The State did not disclose the emails to Defendant before the preliminary hearing. Both Ms. Allen and Detective Fait testified at the preliminary hearing and were cross-examined by defense counsel. Neither witness mentioned Ms. Allen’s emails or her recantation of the rape allegation. A few days after the preliminary hearing, Ms. Allen was murdered. The murder was unrelated to this case or to Defendant. The emails were finally disclosed to Defendant when the State provided discovery on December 21, 2017. Prior to trial, Defendant moved to exclude Ms. Allen’s preliminary hearing testimony based on Tennessee Rule of Evidence 804 and the Confrontation Clause of the United States Constitution and the Tennessee Constitution. Following a hearing, the trial court declared Ms. Allen unavailable and denied Defendant’s motion, finding that Defendant had both an opportunity and a similar motive to develop Ms. Allen’s testimony at the preliminary hearing through cross-examination. At trial, the State played the audio recording of Ms. Allen’s preliminary hearing testimony for the jury and introduced the emailsas substantive evidence. The jury convicted Defendant of one count of aggravated rape and one count of domestic assault, and the trial court imposed an effective sentence of twenty years to be served at one hundred percent. We hold that the State’s failure to disclose the obviously exculpatory first email before Ms. Allen testified at the preliminary hearing, coupled with her death before trial, deprived Defendant of the opportunity to cross-examine Ms. Allen about the veracity of the emails, violated Brady 12/10/2020 -2 v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and deprived Defendant of his constitutional right to due process of law. We reverse Defendant’s convictions and remand for a new trial.