Justia Mississippi Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Jabrien Williams was twenty-two years old when he convinced fourteen-year-old JR to unlock the window of an unoccupied bedroom of her family’s ground-floor apartment. Once inside, Williams had sex with the JR. Days later, Williams texted JR, attempting to have sex with her again. Soon after, JR’s stepfather discovered the messages on the family’s iPod. JR told her stepfather that Williams sent the messages to her. She then informed her mother she had sex with Williams in their apartment. Williams was indicted on one count of sexual battery. Before trial, Williams’s counsel disclosed that one of Williams’s defense theories would be that someone else—namely, Williams’s younger brother, who went to school with JR—sent the text messages from Williams’s phone. But at trial, Williams employed a different defense, steadfastly denying that the phone number used to send JR the messages was his. His younger brother also testified the number was not Williams’s. The State ran the phone number through the Madison County Detention Center logs. After the State rested, it learned this exact phone number was listed by Williams as his contact number when he received an ankle monitor for an unrelated crime. Realizing Williams had been wearing the GPS monitor during the relevant time frame, the State inquired further and learned GPS coordinates placed Williams at JR’s apartment the night she reported he had sex with her. Over Williams’s objection, the judge permitted the State to introduce this evidence during its rebuttal. On appeal of his conviction, Williams challenged several evidentiary rulings, significantly the admission of the State's rebuttal evidence. The Mississippi Supreme Court found no abuse of discretion in the trial court's ruling, and affirmed. View "Williams v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

The Mississippi Court of Appeals vacated Norris Alexander’s life-without-parole sentence as a habitual offender under Mississippi Code Section 99-19-81 (Rev. 2020). The Court of Appeals held that the Circuit Court erred by denying Alexander’s motions for funds to hire a mitigation investigator and an adolescent-development psychologist for his Miller v. Alabama hearing. The State petitioned the Mississippi Supreme Court for certiorari, which was granted. Finding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying the motions for expert funding, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals’ decision, and reinstated and affirmed the trial court’s sentencing order. View "Alexander v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Kobe Augustine was convicted of second-degree murder for the killing of Nigel Poole. A divided Court of Appeals reversed and remanded Augustine’s conviction, opining that the circuit court erred by admitting hearsay testimony and that the error was not harmless. The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed, finding that consistent with Mississippi law, the circuit court did not err by allowing an officer to testify to the content of a witness’s prior statement for the purpose of impeachment. But even assuming that doing so was erroneous, the evidence against Augustine overwhelmingly supported his conviction. View "Augustine v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Seth Copes was convicted on two counts of sexual battery of two minors. He was sentenced to twenty years on each count, to be served consecutively. Copes appealed, and the Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction and sentence. The Mississippi Supreme Court granted certiorari for the purpose of addressing Copes’s argument that he was denied his counsel of choice. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed Copes' convictions. View "Copes v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

A D’Iberville police officer arrested Damian Brown after spotting a firearm during a traffic stop. Brown appealed his resulting conviction for three counts of possession of a controlled substance and one count of unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The trial court sentenced Brown to a total of twenty-four years to be served day for day without the benefit of early release or probation under Mississippi Code Section 99-19-81 (Rev. 2020), the habitual offender statute. Brown’s defense counsel filed a motion for JNOV or, alternatively, a new trial. The court denied the motions. To the Mississippi Supreme Court, Brown contended the trial court erred in denying his motions. The Supreme Court concluded the jury instructions given fairly and accurately announced the law of the case concerning constructive possession. The Supreme Court further found the trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying Brown’s proposed jury instruction D-11 as it had already been fairly covered elsewhere in the instructions by the State’s jury instruction S-5, a more complete and accurate statement of the law. Furthermore, the Court concluded Brown was not entitled to a circumstantial evidence jury instruction based on Nevels v. Mississippi. Therefore, the Supreme Court affirmed the trial court. View "Brown v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Sedric Sutton sought compensation under Mississippi Code Sections 11-44-1 to -15 (Rev. 2019), Compensation to Victims of Wrongful Conviction and Imprisonment, after his conviction of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute was vacated by the Mississippi Supreme Court. He argued his conviction was reversed on grounds not inconsistent with innocence and that the crime he committed was not a felony. Because Sutton failed to demonstrate a genuine issue of material fact, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's dismissal of his claims. View "Sutton v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

This appeal raised a question of first impression for the Mississippi Supreme Court's consideration concerning the unit of prosecution in felon-in-possession cases. Stanley McGlasten, a convicted felon, was caught with four guns in a small residence. He was charged with and convicted of four separate violations of of Mississippi Code Section 97-37-5(1) (Rev. 2020). And he was sentenced to separate terms of ten years’ imprisonment on each of the four counts, to be served consecutively. Specifically, the issue for the Court's resolution was what the phrase, "any firearm" meant: did it mean one firearm—thus permitting the State to stretch the four firearms McGlasten simultaneously possessed into four separate counts, exposing him to four times the punishment? Or did it encompass the possession of multiple guns, thereby exposing McGlasten to just one count of unlawfully possessing the four firearms found that day in the house? After review, the Court felt it had no choice but to hold that the answer to both of these questions was yes. "[T]he statute’s use of the phrase 'any firearm' to define the unit of prosecution is susceptible to both the singular and plural meaning of 'any.' So it is without question ambiguous." When a criminal statute was ambiguous, the rule of lenity mandated the Court to interpret the statute in favor of the accused. "That means we must adopt the interpretation that 'any firearm' includes multiple firearms possessed at the same time and in the same place. Therefore, McGlasten’s multiple convictions cannot stand." Because the State presented evidence that McGlasten possessed the four weapons at the same time in the same small house, his four convictions merge into one count of conviction. Thus, only one of McGlasten’s convictions can be affirmed. The matter was remanded to the circuit court to vacate McGlasten's sentences, merge the four counts to one, and to resentence him on the one remaining count. View "McGlasten v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Undra Pulliam was granted an out-of-time appeal of his 2016 conviction for the sale of crack cocaine. The State charged Pulliam with the sale, transfer, or distribution of more than two but less than ten grams of crack cocaine in violation of Mississippi Code Section 41-29-139 (Rev. 2018). In 2018, Pulliam filed a postconviction petition seeking an out-of-time appeal, which was denied. The Court of Appeals reviewed this denial and reversed and remanded for an evidentiary hearing, based on Pulliam’s unrefuted allegation that he had not been advised of his right to appeal. On remand, on August 17, 2020, a successor trial judge heard Pulliam’s request, after which he entered an order granting Pulliam thirty days to file an out-of-time appeal. Pulliam filed the present appeal at issue here, challenging his cocaine sale conviction and habitual offender sentence. Pulliam sought a new trial, first arguing the jury’s guilty verdict was against the weight of the evidence. And as part of his weight of the evidence challenge, Pulliam suggested a testifying Agent Brown improperly bolstered this evidence by pitching "White" as a trusted informant and provided improper opinion testimony by describing what he saw in a video as a drug deal. Pulliam also argued his two qualifying prior felony cocaine convictions were void, thus making his Section 99-19-81 habitual offender sentence improper. The Mississippi Supreme Court rejected all of Pulliam's arguments on appeal and affirmed his convictions and sentence. View "Pulliam v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

A jury found Antonio Parker guilty of domestic-violence-based aggravated assault and kidnapping. On appeal, he argued the trial court wrongly denied him a continuance of his trial and that he received ineffective assistance of counsel. After review, the Mississippi Supreme Court found Parker had shown neither error nor resulting prejudice from the trial court’s denial of his fourth requested continuance. Furthermore, the Court found he did not prove his counsel was constitutionally deficient. View "Parker v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Cullen Fields was convicted by jury of sexual battery. He appealed, arguing the trial court erroneously denied his right to exercise two of his peremptory strikes during jury selection. After review, the Mississippi Supreme Court found the trial court did not err by denying the two peremptory strikes Fields sought to exercise. Accordingly, it affirmed Fields' conviction. View "Fields v. Mississippi" on Justia Law