Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Ahmad Butler was convicted of manslaughter by a jury for which he was sentenced to twenty years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Butler appealed, claiming that pretrial photo lineups were overly suggestive, that identifications were unreliable, and that the trial judge erred in denying his motion for a new trial. Finding that Butler's arguments were without merit, the Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's judgment of conviction and Butler's sentence. View "Butler v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Lessadolla Sowers was convicted in the Tunica County Circuit Court of ten counts of voter fraud as a habitual offender. Mississippi Bureau of Investigations officers determined that a significant number of absentee ballots had been mailed to a post office box held in Sowers's name. She was sentenced to five years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections for each count, with each sentence ordered to run concurrently with the others. Sowers appealed, arguing that the State presented insufficient evidence at trial to sustain the jury's verdicts of guilt on the ten counts of voter fraud and her habitual-offender status. Finding otherwise, the Supreme Court affirmed Sowers's convictions and sentence. View "Sowers v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Johnny R. Young, Jr. was convicted in the Circuit Court of Union County on three counts of sexual battery of his minor daughter and was sentenced to three concurrent life sentences. The Supreme Court assigned Young's appeal to the Court of Appeals, which unanimously affirmed. The Court granted certiorari to consider two of Young's issues and found that: (1) the circuit court did not err by admitting evidence that Young had sexually assaulted his stepsister when she was five and he was fifteen, because the circuit court found the prior assault probative of a noncharacter issue under Mississippi Rule of Evidence 404(b); and (2) the sexual-assault nurse examiner who examined "Cindy" was amply qualified by her training and experience to testify regarding the cause of the hymenal tear or rupture that she had observed while examining Cindy. Thus, the Court affirmed the trial and appellate courts' judgments. View "Young v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

A jury found Anthony Mercie Expose guilty of having forcible sexual intercourse with Shannon M. Bessee. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded his conviction because it found that the trial court had erred in refusing an instruction that would have informed the jury that consent is a defense to forcible sexual intercourse and that the State had the burden of proving that Bessee had not consented. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that the trial court did not err in refusing this instruction. Additionally, the Court found that the post-trial discovery of a domestic-violence conviction involving Bessee's husband did not warrant a new trial. Therefore, the Court reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeals and affirmed the verdict and sentence Circuit Court. View "Expose v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

The trial court sentenced Charles Harris as a habitual offender to the maximum twenty years for aggravated assault, and to ten years for being a convicted felon who used a firearm in the commission of a felony. But the statute that authorizes a ten-year sentence for using a firearm in the commission of a felony does not apply where a "greater minimum sentence" is available under some other provision of law. And because the minimum sentence available for Harris's habitual status exceeded ten years, the Supreme Court vacated his sentences and reversed and remanded the case to the Circuit Court for re-sentencing. View "Harris v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Frederick Denell Grim was convicted by jury for the sale of cocaine. The circuit judge adjudicated Grim a habitual offender and sentenced him to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The Supreme Court granted Grim's petition for writ of certiorari to examine whether the trial court erred by allowing a laboratory supervisor, who neither observed nor participated in the testing of the substance, to testify in place of the analyst who had performed the testing. Finding no error, the Court affirmed. View "Grim v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Concerned with the sufficiency of process in multiple paternity and child-support cases, Chancellor D. Neil Harris conducted a hearing in which he found an individual process-server, Guy Jernigan; a notary, Thomas McDonald; and an owner of a process service company, Edwin Chesire (collectively, "Defendants"), to be in civil contempt of court for causing the filing of false proof-of-service affidavits. Ten days after the initial contempt hearing, the chancellor held a "sentencing hearing" in which he made all the Defendants jointly and severally liable for $88,500 in sanctions, required Jernigan and McDonald to issue written apologizes to the other chancellors in the Sixteenth Chancery Court District, and banned them from ever again serving process or notarizing documents for the Sixteenth Chancery Court District. The chancellor further ordered all the Defendants to be incarcerated every weekend until the reimbursements were received and the apologizes were made. The Supreme Court subsequently found that the judgments were for constructive criminal contempt, as opposed to civil contempt. Thus, Chancellor Harris was bound by the additional due-process safeguards which govern constructive criminal contempt proceedings and erred by neither recusing himself from the proceedings nor notifying the Defendants of the specific criminal charges against them. The Court vacated the contempt judgments on these procedural grounds and remanded the case to the Jackson County Chancery Court for further proceedings. View "In Re: Thomas Corey McDonald and Edwin Cheshire" on Justia Law

Robert Rowland appealed a circuit court judgment that denied his motion for post-conviction collateral relief. Rowland claimed that he was placed in double jeopardy when he was convicted on two counts of armed robbery and two counts of capital murder for killing while engaged in the commission of those same two armed robberies. Upon review, the Supreme Court agreed, and vacated Rowland's separate armed-robbery convictions and sentences and reversed the circuit court denying Rowland's petition for post-conviction relief. View "Rowland v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

Robert Lee Jenkins was convicted for possession of a controlled substance. He was sentenced to life imprisonment under the habitual-offender statute. On appeal, The Supreme Court granted Jenkins's petition for writ of certiorari to examine whether the trial court erred by allowing a laboratory supervisor to testify regarding the results of substance testing, where the supervisor reviewed and verified the results, but another analyst actually performed the tests. Finding no error, the Court affirmed. View "Jenkins v. Mississippi" on Justia Law

In the summer of 2008, Lonnie Young shot and killed his wife's lover at a family reunion. Young was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Young raised four issues on appeal. The Court of Appeals affirmed and the Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider: (1) whether the trial court should be reversed for denying Young an opportunity to impeach a witness; (2) and/or for denying Young's imperfect-self-defense jury instruction. The Court agreed with the Court of Appeals in finding that, although the trial court erred in denying Young the opportunity fully to impeach defense witness Shakitay Harris, this error was harmless. The Court found no error in the trial court's denial of Young's imperfect-self-defense jury instruction. Therefore, the Court affirmed the judgments of the Court of Appeals and Circuit Court. View "Young v. Mississippi" on Justia Law