Justia Mississippi Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Scott Smith was convicted of capital murder for the death of seventeen-month-old child and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Smith appealed his conviction to the Court of Appeals, arguing that the trial court erred in admitting several Facebook messages and that the testimony of an investigator violated the Confrontation Clause. The Court of Appeals found no reversible error and affirmed. Smith then appealed to the Supreme Court arguing that the Court of Appeals erred: (1) in holding that the Facebook messages were sufficiently authenticated; (2) that the Court of Appeals erred by finding that an email from Facebook was not inadmissible hearsay; and (3) that the Court of Appeals erroneously applied a harmless-error analysis to the violation of Smith’s confrontation rights. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and limited its review to Smith’s claim that the Facebook messages were not sufficiently authenticated. The Court found that Smith’s claim had merit; however, because the error was harmless, the Court affirmed Smith’s conviction and sentence.View "Smith v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Derrick Henley appealed his conviction by jury of possession of burglary tools. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that the State failed to present sufficient evidence that the tools were intended to be used in aiding the commission of a burglary. The Court therefore reversed and remanded Henley's conviction and sentence. View "Henley v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Charles Ferguson rode as a back-seat passenger with Lazeric Yarbrough and Oratio Robinson, unaware of Yarbrough’s and Robinson’s intent to purchase marijuana once the car arrived in West Point. On their return to Starkville, the men approached a Mississippi Highway Patrol checkpoint. As they approached the checkpoint, Yarbrough (in the front seat) opened the door and threw the bag of marijuana from the vehicle. The officers at the checkpoint watched as the bag was thrown from the vehicle and subsequently arrested all three men. Ferguson was indicted for possession of marijuana in an amount greater than 250 grams but less than 500 grams, with the intent to distribute. The State presented that it had learned during the break that Ferguson was a habitual offender, and it had just then filed its motion to amend the indictment to reflect his habitual-offender status. The trial court moved forward with a hearing on the State’s motion to amend the indictment. Defense counsel argued that, because of the timing of the motion, an amendment would unfairly prejudice Ferguson. The trial court recessed to give defense counsel an opportunity to speak with Ferguson; during the recess, the State communicated its plea offer to Ferguson for his consideration. Thereafter, the trial court allowed the amendment. An additional “brief recess” was taken to give Ferguson and defense counsel one last chance to confer. Ferguson chose to reject the State’s plea offer. Ferguson was convicted of the lesser-included offense of possession of marijuana in an amount of 250 grams but less than 500 grams, and sentenced to serve eight years as a habitual offender. On appeal, he argued that: (1) the verdict was against the sufficiency of the evidence; (2) the trial court erred in allowing the indictment to be amended after jury selection had been completed; (3) the trial court erred in denying his motion for a continuance; and (4) his counsel was ineffective. The Supreme Court concluded after review, the trial court erred in allowing the amendment to the indictment, because Ferguson did not receive proper notice and was unfairly surprised. Accordingly, the Court reversed in part the judgments of the Court of Appeals and trial court that ruled otherwise. The Court vacated only the portion of Ferguson’s sentence that was based on his status as an habitual offender. The case was remanded for resentencing.View "Ferguson v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Robert Reith was convicted by jury for the murder of his ex-wife and sentenced to life. He appealed, but his conviction and sentence was affirmed by the Court of Appeals. On appeal to the Supreme Court, Reith argued the trial court erred in granting pattern jury instruction S-5, and that he received ineffective assistance of counsel with regard to that instruction. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded, finding that the trial court erred in granting instruction S-5, and that the error was not harmless. "Deliberate design may not be presumed, and we overrule our prior cases to the extent that they conflict with this principle. We admonish the circuit courts not to grant an instruction which relies upon a presumption of intent, as it conflicts with the presumption of innocence, relieving the State of its burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt on an essential element of the offense." View "Reith v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Craig Williams was convicted by jury of armed robbery. Williams appealed his conviction, claiming: (1) a broken "BB gun" did not meet the definition of a deadly weapon for purposes of Mississippi's armed-robbery statute; (2) the trial court failed to instruct the jury regarding the legal definition of a deadly weapon; and (3) because the jury was instructed that they "need not actually see a deadly weapon," they were misinstructed on the legal necessity of the use of a deadly weapon. Finding no merit in any of these contentions, the Supreme Court affirmed Williams's armed robbery conviction. View "Williams v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Stevenson Ford was convicted of murder, and he was sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole. Ford appealed, arguing he was entitled to a mistrial after an officer testified to hearsay that previously had been ruled inadmissible, that he was entitled to a mistrial due to the jury's premature deliberations, and that the verdict was against the overwhelming weight of the evidence. Finding no error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Ford v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

James McCoy appealed his convictions and sentences for two counts of armed robbery. McCoy's appellate counsel argues that McCoy's sentences are excessive and the result of vindictiveness, that McCoy was denied a fair trial due to the prosecutor's use of the golden-rule argument, and that McCoy received ineffective assistance of counsel at trial. McCoy filed a pro se supplemental brief, raising four additional assignments of error. But finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed McCoy's convictions and sentences. View "McCoy v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

In a matter of first impression, the issue before the Supreme Court centered on whether one wrongfully convicted of a crime and placed in the Intensive Supervision Program, commonly known as house arrest, is entitled to compensation under Mississippi Code Sections 11-44-1 to -7. Frank Sanders Tipton was convicted of extortion and served time in Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) facilities as well as in the Intensive Supervision Program. After the Court vacated his judgment, Tipton filed a claim for compensation for wrongful conviction and incarceration. The State agreed to pay Tipton for his time served in prison but not for his time in the Intensive Supervision Program. After both sides filed for summary judgment, the Circuit Court granted summary judgment for the State, which Tipton appealed. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court’s grant of summary judgment. View "Tipton v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

David Lee Rice filed a petition for post-conviction relief in Circuit Court, arguing that he had been improperly sentenced to life without parole as a habitual offender after a 1996 conviction for auto burglary. Finding Rice's arguments on appeal to be without merit, the Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's judgment.View "Rice v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Johnny Ray Sims was charged with three counts of aggravated assault, with each count alleging a separate victim. The trial court subsequently accepted the defendant’s best-interest guilty plea to one count of aggravated assault and dismissed the remaining counts. As part of his sentence, Sims was ordered to pay restitution to an alleged victim named in one of the dismissed counts. More than three years later, Sims filed a petition for post-conviction relief, raising a claim of illegal sentence, among several other claims. The trial court dismissed Sims’s petition as time-barred and successive, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal. The Supreme Court granted Sims’s petition for writ of certiorari to review his claim that restitution related to a dismissed charged was improper. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that in exchange for his plea of guilty, two aggravated-assault charges against Sims were dismissed. The Court found Sims waived any objection to the restitution order: neither Sims nor his attorney ever objected – either at the plea hearing or two weeks later at the sentencing hearing – to the imposition of the restitution or the amount or the distribution of the restitution ordered. "Sims should not now be allowed to complain." Accordingly, the Court affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of Sims’s petition for post-conviction relief. View "Sims v. Mississippi" on Justia Law