Sanders v. State
| Docket Number: | 2008-KA-01445-COA Linked Case(s): 2008-KA-01445-COA ; 2008-CT-01445-SCT ; 2008-CT-01445-SCT ; 2008-CT-01445-SCT |
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| Court of Appeals: |
Opinion Link Opinion Date: 03-09-2010 Opinion Author: Roberts, J. Holding: Affirmed |
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| Additional Case Information: |
Topic: Murder - Weight of evidence - Flight instruction - Photographs - Sentence - Section 99-19-81 - Section 99-13-7 - Section 99-19-21(1) Judge(s) Concurring: Lee and Myers, P.JJ., Irving, Griffis and Maxwell, JJ. Non Participating Judge(s): Carlton, J. Dissenting Author : Ishee, J., with separate written opinion. Dissent Joined By : King, C.J., and Barnes, J. Procedural History: Jury Trial Nature of the Case: CRIMINAL - FELONY |
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| Trial Court: |
Date of Trial Judgment: 05-30-2008 Appealed from: TISHOMINGO COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT Judge: Thomas J. Gardner Disposition: ACQUITTED BY REASON OF INSANITY OF COUNT I, MURDER, AND ORDERED TO CONFINEMENT IN A STATE ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE, ORDER SUSPENDED, AND CONVICTION OF COUNT II, MURDER, AND SENTENCED AS A HABITUAL OFFENDER TO LIFE IN THE CUSTODY OF THE MIS S IS S IP P I DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS TO RUN CONSECUTIVELY WITH THE ORDER IN COUNT I District Attorney: John Richard Young Case Number: CR05-078 |
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| Note: | Due to a military leave of absence, Hon. Virginia C. Carlton did not participate in this hand down. | |
| Party Name: | Attorney Name: | Brief(s) Available: | ||
| Appellant: | KEIR D. SANDERS |
HUNTER NOLAN AIKENS |
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| Appellee: | STATE OF MISSISSIPPI | OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL: JEFFREY A. KLINGFUSS | ||
Synopsis provided by:  If you are interested in subscribing to the weekly synopses of all Mississippi Supreme Court and Court of Appeals hand downs please contact Tammy Upton in the MLI Press office. |
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| Topic: | Murder - Weight of evidence - Flight instruction - Photographs - Sentence - Section 99-19-81 - Section 99-13-7 - Section 99-19-21(1) |
| Summary of the Facts: | Keir Sanders was tried for two murders. Sanders was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity on Count I, but the jury found that he remained insane and a danger to the community. On Count II, Sanders was found guilty of murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison as a habitual offender. The circuit court ordered him to be confined to the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield on Count I, and sentenced him to life in prison on Count II, with the confinement pursuant to Count I to be suspended until such time as Sanders is released on Count II. Sanders appeals. |
| Summary of Opinion Analysis: | Issue 1: Weight of evidence Sanders argues that the overwhelming weight of the evidence indicated that he was insane at the time he committed the murders. To allow criminals to challenge inconsistent verdicts on the ground that in their case the verdict was not the product of lenity would require inquiries into the jury’s deliberations, and courts generally will not undertake such a task. If Sanders had been tried separately in Lafayette County for the murder of his grandfather and found not guilty by reason of insanity and months later tried in Lee County for the murder of his grandmother, based on the same evidence, and found guilty of murder, the “not guilty” verdict in Lafayette County would have no relevance or materiality to the guilty verdict in Lee County. Both the legal sufficiency or the weight of the evidence must be judged solely on the evidence the jury had before it when the jury members shut the door to the jury room and began their final deliberations. The sufficiency or weight of the evidence cannot be based on an event, such as an inconsistent verdict, which transpires thereafter. Reviewing the record in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence does not preponderate heavily against the verdict, nor would it sanction an unconscionable injustice to allow the verdict to stand. Whether the defendant was insane at the time of the alleged crime is an issue for the jury, which may accept or reject expert and lay testimony. Once a reasonable doubt of sanity is raised, the State bears the burden to prove the defendant's sanity beyond a reasonable doubt. Undoubtedly, Sanders suffered from emotional and/or psychological problems as well as self-reported drug use. However, the various testimonies by medical personnel, who had either treated or evaluated Sanders at various times prior to and twenty years after the murders of Sanders’s grandparents, along with the lay testimonies presented by Sanders’s mother and stepfather about the long-standing animosity between Sanders and his grandfather, presented the jury with conflicting accounts of the degree or severity of Sanders’s mental illness. The jury was well within its discretion to determine that, whereas Sanders may have been overcome by paranoia when he brutally bludgeoned and shot his grandfather, while his grandfather was cooking breakfast that morning, he was deliberate and cognizant of the wrong that he was committing when he then went upstairs to shoot his sleeping grandmother. Issue 2: Flight instruction Sanders argues that it was error for the circuit court to instruct the jurors that they may have considered flight as evidence of guilt as two experts provided an independent reason for Sanders’s flight. Such an instruction is appropriate only where that flight is unexplained and somehow probative of guilt or guilty knowledge. Any explanation given in an effort to show an independent reason for flight must not be contradicted by other evidence presented at trial. At best, the two experts’ beliefs about why Sanders ran were educated guesses based upon Sanders’s history of mental illness and were neither based upon his actions immediately before or after the murders, nor were they wholly consistent with the facts surrounding the murders. Issue 3: Photographs Sanders argues that it was error for the circuit court to admit the photographs taken during one of the victim’s autopsy as they were more prejudicial than probative of Sanders’s guilt. So long as a photograph has probative value and its introduction serves a meaningful evidentiary purpose, it may still be admissible despite being gruesome, grisly, unpleasant, or even inflammatory. Meaningful evidentiary purpose is found when the photograph aids in describing the circumstances of the killing; describes the location of the body or cause of death; or supplements or clarifies witness testimony. Here, the photographs had probative value in that they helped clarify the deposition testimony of one of the witnesses. The probative value of the photographs outweighed any prejudicial effect they may have had, especially given the evidence against Sanders. Furthermore, the circuit court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the prosecution to use a projector to display the photographs. Use of a projector to enhance the testimony of a witness is within the discretion of the trial court, and is encouraged – to the extent it aids the jury in understanding the witness or other evidence so long as the purpose for using the projector was not to inflame the jury. Issue 4: Sentence Sanders argues that the circuit court did not have the authority to order the confinement and imprisonment to run consecutively; therefore, he should be first committed to and confined in a state asylum for the insane. Sanders was sentenced in accordance with section 99-19-81. The language of section 99-19-81 mirrors that of section 99-13-7 in that both instruct a trial court that it “shall” impose a sentence and order confinement in a state asylum, respectively. Therefore, the circuit court was presented with two courses of action, both of which seem to be mutually exclusive, and it was statutorily mandated to comply with both. Adding to the confusion, given the circuit court’s order, is the fact that Sanders is correct in his contention that section 99-19-21(1) does not apply in this situation. Sanders was not convicted on Count I, and he could not be sentenced of a second offence as the jury acquitted him by reason of insanity of the killing of his grandfather. However, the circuit court’s lack of discretion notwithstanding, its order is a correct application of the law. Given that the applicable sections 99-13-7 and 99-19-81 require a trial court to order and sentence, respectively, a defendant to two completely different locations for different purposes, the labeling of consecutive or concurrent that is attached to the order and sentence is moot as it is an impossibility for a defendant to be at two places at once; and fulfillment of one obligation has no bearing on the fulfillment of the other. The only possibility is for the order and sentence to run consecutively. Therefore, what determines the timing of the imposition of the order or sentence in this case is the language of section 99-19-81 and simultaneous lack of language from section 99-13-7. Only section 99-19-81 further provides that that course of action, namely imposing the maximum sentence for the underlying felony, “shall not be reduced or suspended.” Section 99-13-7 does not contain such a restriction. Therefore, Sanders’s order of commitment stemming from the jury’s finding of not guilty by reason of insanity in Count I had to be suspended by operation of section 99-13-7's conflict with a simultaneous conviction of guilt and sentencing under section 99-19-81, the latter being explicitly immune from suspension. Therefore, the circuit court properly exercised its discretion in requiring Sanders to serve first his mandatory life sentence before his term of an indefinite confinement in a mental institution. |
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