Justia Mississippi Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Darren Lee Wharton was found guilty by a jury of capital murder in 1995 for the shooting death of Danny McCugh during the commission of a robbery. The crime occurred on July 17, 1994, when Wharton was seventeen years of age. Wharton was granted leave by the Mississippi Supreme Court to the proceed with a motion for post-conviction relief (PCR) based on Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), and Montgomery v. Louisiana, 136 S. Ct. 718 (2016). The trial court vacated Wharton’s life- without-parole sentence for capital murder and granted Wharton a Miller sentencing hearing. The trial court denied Wharton’s request that a jury make the Miller determination, stating that “the sentencing authority is the trial court.” Following the Miller hearing, the trial court resentenced Wharton to life in prison without parole. The Court of Appeals reversed Wharton’s sentence and remanded the case to the trial court, instructing that “Wharton’s Miller resentencing should be decided by a jury, not the trial court, because Wharton was convicted and sentenced under [Mississippi Code Section] 99-19-101 that prescribes sentencing solely by a jury.” The State petitioned for a writ of certiorari, which was granted. The Supreme Court found Wharton was not entitled to have a Miller resentencing hearing in front of a new jury because Section 99-19-101 was complied with at the original sentencing proceeding. Accordingly, it reversed the Court of Appeals’ decision. Further, although the Court of Appeals did not reach the question, the Supreme Court found no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s decision not to resentence Wharton to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Accordingly, the Court reinstated and affirmed. View "Wharton v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Antwune Washington was indicted on counts of aggravated assault and possession of a firearm by a felon. The jury acquitted Washington of aggravated assault, but found him guilty of felony possession of a firearm. Washington appealed. His appellate counsel filed a Lindsey brief. Washington, pro se, argues that the indictment was insufficient and that his conviction and sentence for felon in possession of a firearm had to be vacated. He argued his indictment was defective because it did not include the specific statutory subsection of the offense and thereby failed to charge an essential element of the crime. The Mississippi Supreme Court found no arguable issues on appeal. Accordingly, it affirmed Washington’s conviction. View "Washington v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Mary Thomas awoke, paralyzed, after surgery. She filed a medical malpractice suit against Dr. Adam Lewis, who performed the surgery, claiming her injuries stemmed from two neurosurgeries performed by Dr. Lewis. Thomas also filed suit against Jackson Neurosurgery Clinic and Central Mississippi Medical Center based on vicarious liability. Thomas’s medical malpractice claims were based on an alleged failure of Dr. Lewis to manage Thomas’s mean arterial blood pressure during the first surgery and Dr. Lewis’s decision to perform the second surgery. However, the issue on appeal involved the reliability of expert testimony under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993). Thomas’s expert, neurosurgeon Dr. Neil Wright, claimed that Dr. Lewis had failed to provide the proper standard of care and, in turn, caused Thomas’s injuries. However, Dr. Lewis argued that Dr. Wright’s opinions were not reliable because they were inconsistent with medical literature. The trial court agreed, struck Dr. Wright’s opinions, and granted partial summary judgment in favor of Dr. Lewis with regard to the first surgery. The trial court also ruled that Dr. Wright could testify to negligence regarding the second surgery. The trial court allowed Thomas to proceed on claims related to the second surgery. Dr. Wright admitted that the decision to perform the second surgery was a judgment call and that he failed to testify that making the decision to proceed with a second surgery was a breach of the standard of care. The trial court considered the evidence and found that Mary Thomas had failed to offer admissible proof from which a reasonable juror could find that Dr. Lewis deviated from a professional standard of care. The trial court directed a verdict in favor of Dr. Lewis, Jackson Neurosurgery Clinic, and Central Mississippi Medical Center, and Thomas appealed. Finding no reversible error, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed. View "Thomas v. Lewis" on Justia Law

Jermaine Alston was convicted by jury of burglary of a dwelling. The trial court sentenced Alston as a habitual offender under Mississippi Code Section 99-19-81 (Rev. 2015) to twenty-five years without the possibility or parole or early release. Alston filed a motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict or, alternatively, a new trial. The trial court denied Alston’s motion, and he filed a notice of appeal. Alston’s appellate counsel found no arguable issue to raise on appeal and filed a brief in accordance with Lindsey v. Mississippi, 939 So. 2d 743 (Miss. 2005). After reviewing the record, the Mississippi Supreme Court found no reversible error or issue warranting supplemental briefing, and affirmed Alston’s conviction and sentence. View "Alston v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Willie Bernard appealed his conviction following a second murder trial for shooting Larry Johnson to death after a traffic dispute in an apartment-complex parking lot. The first trial resulted in a jury finding Bernard guilty of murder and an accompanying firearm enhancement. But the trial judge found he had wrongly denied Bernard’s request to instruct the jury on the Castle Doctrine. So the judge granted Bernard’s posttrial motion for a new trial and set aside that jury’s guilty verdict. The State tried Bernard again. And this time, the trial judge granted Bernard a Castle Doctrine instruction. He also instructed the jury on self-defense. Once again, a jury found Bernard guilty of murder and the related firearm enhancement. He was sentenced to life in prison. Bernard now appeals this murder conviction. The Mississippi Supreme Court determined sufficient evidence supported the jury's verdict, and his remaining appellate challenges, over the record, other jury instructions, the effectiveness of his counsel, jury selection, and improper witness bolstering, were either wholly speculative, not preserved, outside the record, or lacked merit. Accordingly, the Court affirmed. View "Bernard, Jr. v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Nadia Alexis appealed a chancellor’s dismissal of her petition for domestic-abuse protection order and his assessment of the filing fee to her. Because sufficient evidence was not presented to support the issuance of a final domestic-abuse protection order, the trial court’s judgment was affirmed. View "Alexis v. Black" on Justia Law

Marlon Howell was convicted of possession of a controlled substance and sentenced to three years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. In 2019, Howell filed a motion to vacate his three year sentence, claiming that his three year sentence was illegal because it exceeded the statutory maximum penalty in effect at the time of his conviction. The State filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that he did not have standing because his sentence had expired. The circuit court granted the motion, found that Howell did not have standing, and dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction. Howell appealed, arguing that the circuit court erred. On the narrow question presented, interpreting Mississippi Code Section 99-39-5(1), the Mississippi Supreme Court held Howell had standing. View "Howell v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Melita Hamilton sued Weatherford International, LLC, and William Dixon. During the lawsuit, Hamilton requested a copy of her medical records from NewSouth Neurospine, LLC. NewSouth billed Hamilton $210.65 for production of 233 pages of medical records and the execution of a medical records affidavit. When Hamilton disputed the amount of the fees, NewSouth asserted that the amount was allowed by Mississippi Code Section 11-1-52 (Rev. 2019). Hamilton moved for discovery sanctions on the ground that NewSouth’s bill exceeded what was permitted by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The trial court granted Hamilton’s motion, finding that under the HIPAA Privacy Rule, NewSouth was limited to charging a reasonable, cost-based fee for reproduction of medical records. The trial court ordered NewSouth to refund Hamilton $159; NewSouth appealed. Finding no reversible error, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed. View "NewSouth Neurospine, LLC v. Hamilton" on Justia Law

In 2012, Timothy Hinton was deer hunting when he fell from his tree stand. He was using a fall-arrest system (FAS), but the tree strap snapped, and Timothy plunged eighteen feet, eventually dying from his injuries. In 2013, Timothy’s parents, Marsha and Thomas Hinton, filed a wrongful-death suit based on Mississippi products-liability law. The defendant manufacturer, C&S Global Imports, Inc., defaulted and was not a source of recovery. So the litigation turned its focus to the manufacturer’s insurer, Pekin Insurance Company. After the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled Mississippi had personal jurisdiction over the Illinois-based insurer, Pekin successfully moved for summary judgment based on the clear tree-stand exclusion in C&S Global’s policy. Retailer Sportsman’s Guide, which sold Timothy the tree stand and FAS in 2009, also moved for and was granted summary judgment, giving rise to this appeal. As grounds for its decision, the trial court relied on the innocent-seller provision in the Mississippi Products Liability Act (MPLA), and found no evidence of active negligence by Sportsman's Guide. The Hintons argued in response: (1) Sportsman’s Guide waived its innocent-seller immunity affirmative defense; (2) a dispute of material fact existed over whether Sportsman's Guide was an innocent seller; or (3) alternatively, Mississippi’s innocent-seller provision should not control: instead the trial court should have followed Minnesota’s approach - the state where Sportsman’s Guide is located (under Minnesota’s law, innocent sellers may be liable when manufacturers are judgment proof, like C&S Global was here). Finding no reversible error in the trial court's judgment, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed. View "Hinton v. Sportsman's Guide, Inc." on Justia Law

An officer with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks saw Sylvester Williams, a convicted felon, throw a pistol from the passenger seat of a fleeing vehicle the officer had been pursuing. A jury found Williams guilty of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. On appeal, his appellate counsel has filed a Lindsey brief; Williams thereafter opted to file a pro se brief. He argued the State’s evidence was insufficient and the jury’s guilty verdict was against the overwhelming weight of the evidence. He also claimed a judge and attorney should have recused, a defense witness was wrongly prevented from testifying, a jury instruction was incorrectly refused, and he received ineffective assistance of counsel. The Mississippi Supreme Court found no merit to any of Williams’s claims, and affirmed. View "Williams v. Mississippi" on Justia Law