Joel Smith

Carlos Lawson appealed the Covington County Circuit Court’s denial of his motion for post-conviction relief after he pleaded guilty to fourth-offense DUI as a habitual offender and received consecutive sentences totaling fifteen years. He argued that his trial attorney provided ineffective assistance by misadvising him about concurrent sentences and failing to challenge his prior convictions or the indictment, which rendered his plea involuntary, and that the indictment was defective for relying on an older prior conviction. The Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of relief. It found Lawson’s hearing testimony contradicted his claims of misadvice and that he had acknowledged the charges and minimum penalties when pleading guilty, so he failed to prove deficient performance or prejudice. The court also held the defective-indictment claim was procedurally barred because it was raised for the first time on appeal and lacked merit, as Mississippi law imposes no five-year limit on prior convictions used to enhance a fourth-offense DUI charge.

criminal lawprocedure

Kodie Marshall Parker was convicted by a Calhoun County jury of two counts of fourth-offense simple domestic violence and sentenced as a habitual offender to concurrent twenty-year terms. On appeal, he argued that the trial court erred by admitting evidence of his prior domestic-violence convictions under Mississippi Rules of Evidence 404(b) and 403, by allowing testimonial hearsay from prior victims and an uncharged offense that violated his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights, and that cumulative error required reversal. The Mississippi Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions and sentences. The court held that the prior incidents were properly admitted to prove motive, intent, and modus operandi, that the challenged statement was offered only for impeachment and therefore was not hearsay and raised no Confrontation Clause issue, and that the single identified error was harmless, leaving no cumulative error.

criminal lawprocedurecivil rights

Joseph Moore appealed the Prentiss County Circuit Court’s denial of his motion for post-conviction relief, in which he claimed his guilty plea to tampering with evidence and felon-in-possession charges (as a habitual offender) was involuntary because his attorney had wrongly advised him that he faced up to forty-five years or life in prison. The Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of relief. The court reasoned that the plea-hearing transcript showed Moore had been correctly informed of the actual penalties for the two charges to which he pled, that he had sworn under oath that he understood those penalties and was satisfied with counsel, and that any reference to longer sentences concerned separate pending indictments that were retired as part of the plea deal. These sworn statements and the record rebutted the supporting affidavit from Moore’s mother, so no evidentiary hearing was required and the claims of involuntariness and ineffective assistance lacked merit.

criminal law

Kenneth Williams was convicted by a Holmes County jury of first-degree murder for fatally shooting his aunt, Faye Ann Noel, after a family dispute over his son's medical care, and was sentenced to life without parole. He raised an insanity defense at trial based on his history of mental illness but was found guilty. On appeal, Williams argued that the trial court erred by admitting hearsay statements from a police captain about what family members told him during the investigation and by permitting the State to comment on his choice not to testify. The Mississippi Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence, holding that the admission of the challenged evidence and any related comments did not constitute reversible error.

criminal lawprocedure

A mother sued the Scott County School District on behalf of her minor son, alleging he was injured while acting as a spotter during a school football team’s maximum back-squat weightlifting session because coaches failed to use safety clamps on the barbell and did not properly supervise the activity. The circuit court granted summary judgment to the District, but the Court of Appeals reversed. The appellate court held that discretionary-function immunity did not apply, because the coaches’ choice not to use inexpensive safety clamps was ordinary negligence rather than a protected governmental policy decision, and that genuine issues of material fact existed regarding whether the District breached its duty of ordinary care to minimize foreseeable risks to students. The case was therefore remanded for further proceedings on the negligence claims.

torts & liability

Ace Joe Mallard filed a second post-conviction relief (PCR) motion in the Lamar County Circuit Court challenging his December 2020 guilty plea and 40-year sentence for second-degree murder. He argued that his plea was involuntary because the State lacked a factual basis and his attorney improperly induced the plea, and he renewed a prior claim that the sentencing order conflicted with the hearing transcript. The circuit court denied the motion as successive under the Uniform Post-Conviction Collateral Relief Act, and the Mississippi Court of Appeals affirmed. The appellate court held that Mississippi Code Annotated § 99-39-23(6) bars successive PCR motions, that Mallard had already litigated one of the claims in his first PCR motion (which was denied and affirmed on appeal), and that he failed to establish any statutory exception—such as newly discovered evidence—because the fundamental-rights exception no longer applies and no qualifying new evidence was presented.

criminal lawprocedure

In this Mississippi divorce case, Christopher and Megan Morland ended their marriage on grounds of irreconcilable differences and asked the Clarke County Chancery Court to decide custody of their daughter, child support, division of military retirement benefits, and attorney’s fees after a period of informal shared parenting. The chancellor applied the Albright factors, awarded Megan primary physical and legal custody with standard visitation for Christopher, ordered him to pay $567 monthly in child support plus health insurance, granted Megan a share of his retirement, and required him to pay $2,000 of her attorney’s fees. Christopher appealed, claiming the custody analysis was insufficient, the support amount was miscalculated, and the fee award was improper. The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in full, holding that the chancellor’s factual findings were supported by substantial evidence, the Albright analysis was adequate, support was correctly determined under the guidelines, and attorney’s fees were properly awarded after considering the McKee factors and Megan’s inability to pay.

family law

Ja'Cory Hampton was convicted by a Bolivar County jury of first-degree murder for the March 2021 shooting death of Deontavis Clark and of using a firearm during the commission of a felony. The circuit court sentenced him to the mandatory term of life imprisonment for murder plus a consecutive five-year term under the firearm-enhancement statute, Mississippi Code Annotated section 97-37-37(1). On appeal, Hampton argued that the five-year enhancement was illegal, an argument the State conceded. The Court of Appeals held that the enhancement constituted plain error because the life sentence already imposed a greater minimum penalty than the statute’s five-year term, and therefore vacated only the firearm-enhancement portion of the sentence while affirming the murder conviction and life term.

criminal lawguns

In William Word v. U.S. Bank, N.A., U.S. Bank filed suit in Perry County Chancery Court seeking an easement by necessity across Word’s adjoining parcel to reach its own landlocked property, both parcels having been severed in the late 1990s from a larger tract that remains unprobated heirship land. The chancellor granted the easement after inspecting the properties, but Word appealed. The Mississippi Court of Appeals reversed and rendered judgment denying the easement, concluding that U.S. Bank possessed no legal right to cross Word’s land because an alternative route existed over the surrounding heirship property (whose owners were not parties to the suit) and because U.S. Bank introduced no evidence of the expense of using that route.

property

In the Matter of the Estate of Stanley Craig Watson, Brenda Smith appealed a Jackson County Chancery Court final judgment that approved payment of attorneys’ fees to the estate’s lawyers, found the estate insolvent, and denied her claim for reimbursement of estate-related expenses along with other creditors’ claims. The Mississippi Court of Appeals reversed and remanded. The court held that the chancellor failed to follow the statutory procedures for insolvent estates under Mississippi Code Annotated sections 91-7-269, 91-7-271, and 91-7-261, which require determining the validity and amounts of claims, applying statutory priorities (such as administration expenses first), and then distributing remaining funds pro rata. The chancellor instead summarily prioritized the attorneys’ fees without the required findings of fact or adherence to those priority rules.

propertyprocedure

Demario Dontez Walker, serving a five-year sentence for a 2013 false-pretense conviction from Jefferson Davis County, filed a post-conviction relief motion in Lamar County Circuit Court challenging the Mississippi Department of Corrections’ calculation of his sentence. The Lamar County court dismissed the motion, ruling that it lacked jurisdiction because Walker had not first exhausted administrative remedies through MDOC’s Administrative Remedy Program. On appeal, the Mississippi Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal, holding that state law and precedent require inmates to obtain a final ARP decision before seeking judicial review of sentence-calculation claims and that PCR motions are not the proper vehicle for such challenges. The court also declined to address new claims Walker raised for the first time on appeal, as they were procedurally barred.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved Robert Farris Jr.’s appeal from the DeSoto County Circuit Court’s denial of his motion for post-conviction relief after he pled guilty to possessing between 0.1 and 2 grams of methamphetamine and received a six-year sentence as a subsequent drug offender. The Mississippi Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of Farris’s PCR motion. The court found that the State had dismissed the habitual-offender portion of the indictment before sentencing, leaving only the subsequent-drug-offender enhancement, and that Farris had agreed to the six-year sentence as part of his plea deal. It also held that Farris had not moved for the trial judge’s recusal during the proceedings and that the judge had no involvement in prosecuting the predicate offenses underlying the enhancements, so no recusal was required.

criminal lawprocedure

Kendall Magee appealed the Walthall County Circuit Court’s denial of his post-conviction relief motion, in which he sought to vacate his 2015 guilty pleas to second-degree murder and felon-in-possession of a firearm. He claimed his pleas were involuntary because his trial attorney had incorrectly advised him that he would serve only six to seven years in prison, that he was denied appointed counsel at the evidentiary hearing, and that counsel was ineffective in other respects. The Court of Appeals affirmed the circuit court’s order denying relief. It held that the plea-hearing transcript and the circuit judge’s credibility findings showed Magee understood the rights he waived and the sentences he faced, that the attorney had not misadvised him about the time to be served, and that the remaining ineffective-assistance claims were procedurally barred because they were not raised in the prior appeal.

criminal lawprocedure

A Rankin County jury convicted Jason Tamayo Galang Jr. of one count of sexual battery after he followed his ex-girlfriend D.L. into her apartment, ignored her repeated objections, and vaginally penetrated her, as confirmed by his recorded admissions to police, forensic evidence, and other testimony. The trial court sentenced him to thirty years in custody with ten years suspended, plus sex-offender registration and no-contact orders. On appeal, Galang argued that the circuit court wrongly excluded videos of his prior consensual sexual activity with D.L. and testimony from D.L.’s sister about an alleged motive to fabricate the charge for custody reasons. The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, holding that the videos were properly excluded under Mississippi Rule of Evidence 412 and that any error in excluding the sister’s testimony was harmless because the State’s proof of guilt was overwhelming and other evidence of D.L.’s custody-related motive was already before the jury.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved Fred and Alison Osing's divorce proceedings in Jackson County Chancery Court, where the parties consented to an irreconcilable-differences divorce and submitted issues of marital property division (including Fred's retirement account), alimony, child support, and expenses for their minor son to the chancellor for decision. After the chancellor divided the estate, awarded Alison permanent alimony, and declined to require Fred to cover all college and health-insurance costs for the son, both parties appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of Fred's request to withdraw his consent to the divorce and the chancellor's treatment of Alison's inherited funds as separate property. It reversed and remanded the equitable division of the marital estate, however, because the chancellor had not made sufficient factual findings on the classification, valuation, and division of certain assets and debts. The court also reversed the alimony award and rulings on the son's college and health-insurance expenses, directing the chancellor to revisit all financial matters together on remand to ensure consistency with the property division.

family lawproperty

Quardero Gipson was convicted by a Tallahatchie County jury of conspiracy to commit armed robbery and first-degree murder based on evidence that included testimony from his co-indictee, and was sentenced to five years plus life imprisonment. On appeal, Gipson argued solely that the trial court abused its discretion by denying his motion for a new trial, claiming two empaneled jurors had potential biases due to personal connections to individuals linked to the case and that the bailiff improperly influenced the jury by answering a question about evidence during deliberations. The Mississippi Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions, holding that the trial court adequately investigated the juror issues—questioning the jurors and noting the defense raised no objection to one—and that any extraneous contact by the bailiff did not create a reasonable possibility of prejudice to the verdicts. Although the trial judge asked one improper question about the effect on the jury's actual decision, the remainder of the inquiry complied with required procedures, no jurors expressed dissatisfaction with the verdicts, and the court found no abuse of discretion in denying a new trial.

criminal lawprocedure

JDB Rentals, LLC, which owned three manufactured homes in Verona, Mississippi, challenged the city’s administrative condemnation of the properties as a public nuisance after the code-enforcement officer notified the prior owner of issues like faulty wiring, water damage, and roof leaks, then later inspected the homes again and ordered their demolition or removal. The city’s board of aldermen upheld the condemnation, and the Lee County Circuit Court affirmed that decision. On appeal, the Mississippi Court of Appeals reversed and rendered judgment for JDB. It held that the officer’s March 2022 inspection was an unconstitutional search conducted without permission, so the exclusionary rule barred use of the resulting evidence; without that evidence, the record lacked substantial proof that the homes met the criteria for a nuisance or for removal under the city’s zoning ordinance on discontinued non-conforming uses.

propertyprocedurecivil rights

Keyshawndra Davis was convicted in Tunica County Circuit Court of first-degree murder and shooting into a motor vehicle after she shot and killed her former romantic partner, Tyangela Carlisle, at a gas station in June 2021; she admitted to the shooting but claimed self-defense. The trial court sentenced her to life imprisonment for the murder and five consecutive years for the shooting offense. On appeal, Davis argued that the court erred by denying her challenges for cause to four potential jurors who had personal connections to Carlisle or her family, claiming this affected jury impartiality. The Mississippi Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions and sentences, holding that Davis had used peremptory challenges to remove those jurors and that no incompetent juror was seated on the jury as a result of the trial court’s rulings, so no reversible error occurred.

criminal lawprocedure

Christopher Johnson Jr. was convicted in Coahoma County Circuit Court of first-degree murder with a firearm enhancement and shooting into a dwelling after he entered an apartment, argued with residents, and fatally shot Jarquis Ragland through a door. He appealed, claiming the trial court should have instructed the jury on the lesser-included offense of heat-of-passion manslaughter and that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to pursue certain evidence. The Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions and sentences. It held that Johnson raised only a self-defense theory at trial with no evidentiary support for a manslaughter instruction, and that his ineffective-assistance claim could not be resolved on direct appeal because the record was incomplete and the State did not stipulate to its adequacy.

criminal lawprocedure

In this case, Jarquavious Doss was convicted by a Chickasaw County jury of capital murder, armed robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, and aggravated assault arising from a 2020 incident in which he and two others lured Robert Cox and Alexis Tallant to a vacant house under the pretense of selling a car, then robbed them at gunpoint, resulting in Cox’s death and injuries to Tallant. Doss received a life sentence for capital murder plus concurrent terms for the other offenses. On appeal, he challenged the denial of a second appointed attorney, the admission of his pretrial statements and an autopsy photo of the victim, alleged ineffective assistance by trial counsel, and cumulative error. The Mississippi Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions and sentences, finding no reversible error in the trial court’s evidentiary and procedural rulings and concluding that the ineffective-assistance claims lacked sufficient record support for direct review and were therefore dismissed without prejudice for possible later post-conviction proceedings.

criminal lawprocedure