Patton v. State

OPINION

GALBREATH, Judge.

Among his assignments of error the appellant avers that the trial judge refused to hear evidence to the effect that the Davidson County Criminal jury, finding him guilty of rape and assessing punishment at 72 years in the penitentiary, arrived at the verdict by agreeing in advance to fix the punishment by dividing the total of all the jurors’ suggested sentences by the number of jurors. Such a quotient verdict is not lawful in Tennessee. See Thompson v. State, 197 Tenn. 112, 270 S.W.2d 379 (1954). Compelling us to overrule this assignment is the insurmountable…