Justia Mississippi Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Early one morning in 2010, Chantel Jobes’ vehicle left the southbound lane of Highway 11, crossed the northbound lane and crashed into a concrete railroad trestle. Jobes was seriously injured in the accident, and she filed a complaint against Norfolk Southern Railway Company, the Mississippi Transportation Commission, and the Mississippi Department of Transportation. The trial judge denied the defendants’ motions for summary judgment. Although stated in a variety of ways, defendants argued simply that the trial judge erred when he did not grant summary judgment in their favor. After review, the Supreme Court agreed, reversed and remanded the case for entry of judgment in favor of defendants. View "The Alabama Great Southern Railroad Co. v. Jobes" 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

In 2006, Tellus Operating Group, LLC, sought to integrate the interests of various owners for the purpose of drilling a well unit in Jefferson Davis County. In accordance with its statutory duty to make a good-faith effort to negotiate the voluntary integration of the owners’ interests on reasonable terms, Tellus mailed option forms to the owners in June and July of 2006. In this case, the issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review was a challenge to a Mississippi Oil and Gas Board pooling order force-integrating various owners’ interests in a proposed drilling unit. After review, the Court held that the Board’s order was supported by substantial evidence. The Court also found that one owner’s attempt to voluntarily integrate his interest within twenty days of the Board’s pooling order did not satisfy Section 53-3-7(2)(g)(iii). View "Tellus Operating Group, LLC v. Maxwell Energy, Inc." 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

In 2011, the New Albany Police Department received a report that shots had been fired in the vicinity of Madison Street, Garfield Street, or Hayes Street. The Union County prosecuting attorney filed a petition alleging that S.S. should be adjudicated a delinquent child for resisting arrest following his detention at the scene of the shooting by the responding police officers. The Court of Appeals affirmed the Union County Youth Court’s adjudication of thirteen-year-old S.S. as a delinquent for resisting arrest, and the Supreme Court granted S.S.’s petition for certiorari. After review, the Court found no error in the Court of Appeals’ conclusion, and affirmed. View "In the Interest of S.M.K.S. v. Youth Court of Union County" on Justia Law

Over thirty years ago, Richard Chunn pleaded guilty to possessing marijuana. That conviction did not prevent him from pursuing his twenty-plus-year career as a licensed bail-bond agent. Then, in 2011, the Legislature amended Section 83-39-3 of the Mississippi Code by adding a provision that prohibits all felons (regardless of the nature and dates of the offenses) from obtaining or renewing a bail-agent license. When the Mississippi Department of Insurance refused to renew his license, Chunn challenged the constitutionality of the statute by appealing to the Circuit Court, which affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded, finding the statute violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. View "Chunn v. Mississippi, Ex Rel. Mississippi Department of Insurance" on Justia Law

The City of Horn Lake contracted with Phillips Construction Company and its owner Michael Phillips to work on a sewer project. Two employees of Phillips, Bertram Hill and David Mooneyhan, were working near the bottom of a trench that was seventeen feet deep when the walls of the trench suddenly collapsed. Mooneyhan was killed, and Hill was injured. Mooneyhan's beneficiaries and Hill (collectively "Plaintiffs") sued the City for Phillips' negligence under respondeat superior and also alleged that the City had negligently hired Phillips. The circuit court granted summary judgment in favor of the City. Plaintiffs appealed. Finding that the City only acted in a supervisory role over the project, the Supreme Court concluded that was not enough to trigger a master-servant relationship for the elements of respondeat superior. The Court found that the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the City was proper, and therefore affirmed the judgment. View "Hill v. City of Horn Lake" 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