Opinion
No. M2002-01343-CCA-R3-CO.
Filed August 26, 2003.
Criminal Court for Davidson County; No. 86-F-1484.
JERRY L. SMITH, JUDGE, GARY R. WADE, PRESIDING JUDGE, JAMES CURWOOD WITT, JR., JUDGE
ORDER
The appellant, Ricky Flamingo Brown, was convicted by a jury in 1987 of the aggravated rape of his then 12-year-old daughter. He subsequently escaped and remained at large until June 1990 when he was captured and commenced to serve the life sentence he received in absentia.
Beginning in March 1993, up until May 2002 the appellant has filed three petitions for the writ of error coram nobis. In this appeal the appellant maintains that the trial court erred in dismissing the third of these petitions filed on May 24, 2002. We find no error in the trial court's dismissal of this last petition for the writ of error coram nobis. We also find that this case presents little to no precedential value. Accordingly, for the reasons set forth below, we affirm the decision of the trial court pursuant to Rule 20, Rules of the Court of Criminal Appeals.
As does the instant petition, both of the appellant's prior coram nobis petitions allege that he is entitled to a new trial based on the alleged recantation by the victim of her trial testimony identifying the appellant as her assailant. In addition, the appellant claims in the instant petition that he possesses evidence that at the time of the rape the victim was engaged in a sexual relationship with a man other than the appellant and that the victim had been sexually active since she was ten years old.
As to the allegation concerning the victim's alleged recantation, this issue has been determined adversely to the appellant on prior occasions and those determinations are law of the case and res djudicata. As to the vague allegations of the victim's sexual behavior with other men, the appellant simply has not shown how this evidence would be admissible under Tenn. R. Evid. 412, the Tennessee Rape Shield Law. For the foregoing reasons we affirm the judgment of the trial court pursuant to Rule 20, Rules of the Court of Criminal Appeals. Because it appears to the Court that appellant is indigent, costs will be taxed to the State.