Justia Mississippi Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Sheila Ealey gave birth to a baby boy in a hotel room, wrapped the baby in a comforter, put him in a suitcase, and left the suitcase behind her church. A jury found her guilty of capital murder with the underlying felony of child abuse, and the circuit court sentenced her to life without parole. Among other things argued on appeal, Ealey argued that the trial court erred in refusing an accident-or-misfortune jury instruction and that the evidence was insufficient to support the guilty verdict. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Ealey v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Larry Wells was convicted of possessing cocaine with the intent to distribute. The trial court sentenced Wells to sixty years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections without parole, as a recidivist under Mississippi Code Section 99-19-81 and as a subsequent drug offender under Section 41-29-147. The Supreme Court reviewed Wells' arguments on appeal, and affirmed his conviction and mandatory thirty-year sentence under Section 99-19-81. The Court found, however, that the trial court erred in reading Section 41-29-147 as requiring that Wells be sentenced to twice the time authorized for a second or subsequent drug conviction. Section 41-29-147 provided for discretionary (not mandatory) sentencing. Therefore, the Court vacated that portion of Wells’s sentence and remanded the matter for resentencing. View "Wells v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Willie Manning appealed a trial court order denying him post-conviction relief. This appeal stemmed from Manning’s conviction of brutally murdering two elderly women in Starkville. The only witness to testify that he saw Manning entering the women’s apartment shortly before their bodies were discovered was Kevin Lucious, a convict serving two life sentences without parole in Missouri. No witness testified to seeing Manning leave the apartment. Considerable evidence was presented to the jury, which found Manning guilty, and Manning was sentenced to death. The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed Manning’s convictions and sentences. Manning filed a petition for post-conviction relief (PCR). The Supreme Court granted Manning leave to proceed with post-conviction proceedings on three grounds: (1) withheld evidence; (2) Kevin Lucious’ testimony; and (3) ineffective assistance of counsel related to those two claims. The trial court denied Manning relief, and appealed that order. Upon further review, the Supreme Court found that the State violated Manning’s due-process rights by failing to provide favorable, material evidence. The Court therefore reversed the denial of post-conviction relief, reversed Manning’s conviction and sentence and remanded the case to the trial court for a new trial. View "Manning v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Terry Hye, Jr. was convicted of capital murder, for which he received a life sentence without the possibility of parole. The Court of Appeals affirmed Hye’s conviction but vacated and remanded his sentence as unconstitutional, pursuant to the United States Supreme Court's decision in "Miller v. Alabama," (132 S. Ct. 2455 (2012)). Hye was sixteen years old at the time of the crime. Hye filed a petition for writ of certioriari with the Mississippi Supreme Court, arguing that the trial court violated his right to a fair trial by denying him an accessory-after-the-fact instruction and an accomplice instruction. Hye also claimed that the trial court failed to properly instruct the jury on the underlying felony of armed robbery, which resulted in a constructive amendment of the indictment. The Mississippi Court granted Hye’s petition, and, pursuant to Mississippi Rule of Appellate Procedure 17(h), addressed only the question of whether the trial court erred by denying Hye an accessory-after-the-fact instruction. The Court agreed with the Court of Appeals that the trial court properly denied Hye’s request for an accessory-after-fact instruction because there was no evidentiary basis for it. The Court also found that a criminal defendant no longer has the unilateral right under Mississippi law to insist upon an instruction for lesser-related offenses which are not necessarily included in the charged offense(s) ("lesser-non included-offense instructions"). And the Court overruled "Griffin v. Mississippi," (533 So. 2d 444 (1988)), and its progeny, to the extent they held otherwise. View "Hye, Jr. v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Marvin Kirk was tried and convicted of aggravated domestic violence. He was sentenced as a habitual offender to twenty years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. The State alleged that Kirk twice had strangled his wife, Casey. At trial, witnesses testified that Casey had red marks on her neck shortly after the alleged assaults had occurred, and Casey testified that Kirk had strangled her. Kirk denied the allegations, arguing: (1) the trial court erred in permitting law enforcement to testify to medical causation with regard to Casey's injuries appearing to be the result of strangulation, since the crime charged was in the indictment; (2) the trial court erred by denying Kirk's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (or in the alternative, for a new trial); (3) the trial court erred in excluding certain letters and a text message; (4) the trial court erred by prohibiting defense counsel from cross examining Casey on a drug hair follicle test on grounds of relevancy; and (5) the trial court erred with regard to jury deliberations after the trial. Finding Kirk’s assignments of error to be without merit, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and sentence. View "Kirk v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Katherine Robertson pled guilty to aggravated assault in 2006. In 2012, Governor Haley Barbour granted Robertson a pardon, and she filed a motion to have her record expunged. The circuit judge denied the motion, and Robertson appealed. The issue presented was novel when Robertson filed her appeal, but it has since been decided. The Mississippi Supreme Court held that statutory authority did not provide for expungement of a pardoned conviction. Therefore, the Court affirmed the trial court’s denial of Robertson’s motion to expunge. View "Robertson v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Craig Sallie was convicted of aggravated assault for shooting Gregory Johnson in the back with a firearm, as well as of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He was sentenced to twenty years for the aggravated assault conviction and ten years for the possession of a firearm conviction, to run concurrently. The trial court also sentenced Sallie to an additional ten years pursuant to the firearm sentence enhancement statute, with that sentence to run consecutively to the other sentences. The Court of Appeals affirmed Sallie’s convictions and sentence. Sallie moved for rehearing, which the Court of Appeals denied. The Supreme Court granted Sallie’s petition to address the issue of whether Sallie was entitled to notice of the firearm enhancement to his sentence. The Court found that Sallie did not receive timely or sufficient notice that the State intended to enhance his sentence using the firearm enhancement. Using the firearm enhancement to increase Sallie’s sentence resulted in unfair surprise. Accordingly, the Court reversed in part the judgments of the Court of Appeals and the trial court, vacated Sallie’s sentence, and remanded the case to the Circuit Court for resentencing. View "Sallie v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Richard Bowlin's daughter Ashley Matthews offered to act as an undercover informant for police to purchase drugs from her father. When Matthews arrived at Bowlin's home, she went into his house, where he sold her four bags of pills for the two hundred dollars she had been provided. Matthews left and returned to the location where she had been fitted with the recording equipment. Bowlin left his house after the transaction was complete, and agents arrested him at a nearby store. The twenty-dollar bills that MBN agents had provided Matthews were found by the arresting officers in Bowlin's billfold. Bowlin was convicted of three counts of sale or transfer of a controlled substance. He was sentenced as an habitual offender to three concurrent thirty-year sentences without the possibility of parole and fined $1 million for each count. Bowlin's appellate counsel filed a brief pursuant to "Lindsey v. Mississippi" certifying that he has reviewed the record and found no arguments to raise on appeal. Bowlin filed his own pro se brief, raising several issues related to the alleged ineffectiveness of his trial and appellate counsel. The Supreme Court, after its review of the record, found no merit to Bowlin's claims of error, and affirmed his convictions and sentences. View "Bowlin v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review centered on whether The Hotboxxx, LLC, has standing to bring suit challenging the constitutionality of a zoning ordinance passed by the City of Gulfport. Hotboxxx, an adult entertainment retailer, claimed that the chancery court erred by finding it had submitted an invalid privilege license application and that, regardless of the invalid license application, it had standing to sue. The City of Gulfport contended the application was incomplete and invalid; therefore, Hotboxxx did not have standing. Because Hotboxxx did not properly file an application and because Hotboxxx’s commercial property lease was therefore void, the Supreme Court held that Hotboxxx indeed lacked standing. Thus, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the chancery court's judgment. View "The Hotboxxx, LLC v. City of Gulfport" on Justia Law

A jury convicted Kendrick Cowart (a/k/a "Rat") of armed robbery and conspiracy, and acquitted him of murder and manslaughter. The trial court sentenced him to fifty-three years: forty-eight years for armed robbery and five years for conspiracy. Terrance London, Cowart’s codefendant who pled guilty to armed robbery, conspiracy, and manslaughter, received a sentence of either forty or forty-five years. Cowart appealed, arguing the Supreme Court should reverse his convictions because his statement to police should have been suppressed, photographs of the victim should have been suppressed, the jury was improperly instructed, and the verdicts are against the weight and sufficiency of the evidence. He also argued his sentence was improper, as he was punished for exercising his right to trial by jury, he was punished for acquitted conduct, the sentence constituted an illegal sentence not reasonably less than his life, the trial court failed to consider all relevant factors, and the sentence was cruel and unusual. The Supreme Court found no merit to Cowart’s arguments and affirmed his convictions. View "Cowart v. Mississippi" on Justia Law