Background
On August 29, 2019, Nickalous Ladd was driving his girlfriend’s vehicle in Memphis with a gun hidden under the driver’s seat. After running a red light, Ladd was pulled over by a police officer but continued driving for several minutes before stopping at his mother’s home. Attempting to hide the gun in the glove compartment, it discharged and struck his girlfriend. Ladd then threw the gun into bushes beside his mother’s front door, where police recovered it.
Ladd was charged with convicted felon in possession of a firearm, a Class C felony, based on this incident and a prior 2006 drug conviction. Following a December 2024 jury trial in Shelby County Criminal Court, he was convicted and sentenced as a Range IV career offender to fifteen years at 60% in the Tennessee Department of Correction.
On appeal, Ladd raised a single issue: whether the evidence was sufficient to sustain his conviction, arguing that no police officer testified to seeing him physically possess the gun.
The Court’s Holding
The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction, holding that the evidence was sufficient to establish both actual and constructive possession of the firearm. Applying the Jackson v. Virginia standard, the court viewed the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution and found a rational jury could find all essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
The court noted that Tennessee law provides that a person commits the offense of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm by unlawfully possessing a firearm while having been convicted of a felony drug offense. Possession may be either actual or constructive. While no officer directly witnessed Ladd holding the gun, the evidence established possession through multiple sources: his girlfriend’s testimony that Ladd brought the gun to a hotel and placed it under the driver’s seat “as he normally did”; video evidence from Officer Oliver’s in-car and body camera showing Ladd near the vehicle seconds after his girlfriend exited saying she had been shot; and Ladd’s own admissions to police that he shot his girlfriend accidentally and attempted to hide a weapon.
The court emphasized that within minutes of the incident, Lieutenant Hardaway found the gun in bushes immediately to the left of where Ladd stood on the porch—establishing clear temporal and spatial proximity that, combined with circumstantial evidence, proved constructive dominion and control over the firearm.
Key Takeaways
- Constructive possession of a firearm requires only that a defendant have the power and intention to exercise dominion and control over it—direct physical possession by police observation is not required.
- On appeal, the reviewing court applies the most favorable view of evidence to the prosecution and must uphold a conviction if any rational jury could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Circumstantial evidence, including witness testimony, defendant admissions, video evidence, and proximity to the weapon, may collectively establish sufficient proof of felon in possession of a firearm.
- A defendant’s own statements to law enforcement admitting the shooting and attempting to hide the weapon constitute powerful evidence of possession and control.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces that felon in possession of a firearm convictions do not require direct evidence of physical possession. Prosecutors can rely on circumstantial evidence, including the defendant’s statements, witness testimony, video evidence, and the defendant’s proximity to where the weapon is found, to establish the constructive possession element. This broadens the evidentiary pathways available in firearms cases where police do not witness the defendant handling the gun.
For defense practitioners, the decision underscores the appellate standard’s deference to jury verdicts on sufficiency grounds. The court’s application of Jackson v. Virginia demonstrates that once a jury convicts, appellate reversal on sufficiency grounds remains a narrow path, requiring that no rational jury could find guilt—a difficult threshold to overcome when circumstantial evidence allows multiple inferences favoring guilt.