Appeals court weighs whether autopsy, expert testimony tainted Wesley Lacy’s murder conviction

An appellate panel in Knox County on Monday considered whether the use of an autopsy report and its adoption by the state’s expert violated the Confrontation Clause in the conviction of Wesley Lacy for second‑degree murder.

Defense attorney Gerald Gulley told the court, “My name is Gerald Gulley,” and summarized the underlying facts: Lacy gave drugs to his wife, Sierra Lacy, at a motel; she went into distress and died after being taken to a hospital. Gulley argued the record lacks sufficient proof that Lacy had the requisite mens rea — that he was reasonably certain the drugs would kill her — and he pressed the court to examine whether expert testimony that relied on an autopsy report prepared by Dr. Danielson can stand when Dr. Danielson did not testify.

The question, Gulley said, is whether the autopsy and the state expert’s reliance on it were testimonial for purposes of Smith v. Arizona and related confrontation‑clause cases. He told the panel that trial counsel’s stipulation admitting the autopsy into evidence did not, in his view, resolve the reliability and confrontation issues now presented on appeal.

State attorney Lacy Woolard responded that the jury was properly instructed and that the indictment and instruction included the fallback mens rea (intentional, knowing, or reckless). Woolard noted that the autopsy report, which he said lists the cause of death as “toxic effects of fentanyl and xylazine,” was admitted by stipulation as authentic and admissible at trial and argued that the stipulation limits the grounds for reversal on evidentiary‑reliability grounds.

The judges and counsel debated whether a distinction exists in this context between admissibility and reliability of expert evidence under rules analogous to Federal Rules of Evidence 702 and 703, and whether Smith left the testimonial question sufficiently open that the court should remand for further findings. Bench questioning focused on facts the jury heard — that the drugs did not smell like heroin, that Lacy and others suspected fentanyl, and that a prior small sample produced a rapid adverse reaction — and whether those facts could support a jury finding of knowledge or recklessness about lethal risk.

Defense counsel said the primary concern is that Dr. Lauren Haverilla, the state’s trial expert, relied in part on an autopsy report authored by Dr. Danielson, who did not testify at trial. Counsel argued that reliance on the out‑of‑court autopsy results and the underlying laboratory work implicates the court’s confrontation analysis as shaped by Smith v. Arizona, Melendez‑Diaz, Bullcoming and related authorities.

Woolard told the court that, even setting aside the autopsy dispute, the jury was instructed on the requisite mental states and the record includes statements and circumstances the jury could reasonably treat as supporting at least recklessness. He urged the court to affirm the conviction.

In rebuttal, Gulley asked the panel to consider remanding for a determination whether the autopsy was testimonial, given Smith’s guidance, and suggested that ineffective assistance or plain‑error analysis could be implicated depending on how the stipulation and record are read.

The panel did not announce a decision at the hearing. The court recessed and adjourned until the 25th.