State Tennessee v. Allan Jenkins

The defendant, Allan Jenkins, Jr., a sixteen year old juvenile on the date of the alleged crime, was indicted and tried in July, 1991, for first degree murder in the shooting death of Steven Hardy. On June 19, 1991, the defendant moved the Court to order the State to provide defendant or his counsel with ""any oral statement made by the defendant, whether before or after arrest in response to interrogation by any person then known to the defendant to be a law enforcement officer, which the State of Tennessee intends to offer in evidence at the trial of this cause on the merits."" An order was entered by the Court on July 11, 1991, granting, among other things, defendant's ""motion to produce all Defendant statements within 72 hours of the jury trial set for July 15, 1991."" Defendant did not testify in that trial, and the jury ""hung"" between acquittal and voluntary manslaughter. The defendant was tried again for first degree murder in October, 1991. The defendant testified in his own defense, and the State was allowed, over the objection of the defendant, to introduce an oral statement made by the defendant to Bill Poor, a Sergeant with the Clarksville Police Department, Detective Division, while the officer was transporting the juvenile defendant to a juvenile detention center, as rebuttal evidence. The officer testified ""There was a general conversation going on, just like I do when I transport any juvenile to a detention facility, and during this conversation, I had the occasion to ask Mr. Jenkins - why he shot the young man, and his statement to me was - that he got in my face."" The State had been aware of this conversation for a long period of time, but neither the defendant nor his counsel was ever advised of the oral statement of the defendant until after the defendant had testified. The officer could not recall the date, the other person with him in the patrol car, the time of day, or the season of the year; but he did remember that he started the general conversation and that he did know the basic rules of interviewing or interrogating juveniles.