States v. State
| Docket Number: | 2010-KA-01033-SCT | |
| Supreme Court: | Opinion Link Opinion Date: 05-17-2012 Opinion Author: Dickinson, P.J. Holding: Affirmed |
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| Additional Case Information: |
Topic: Capital murder - Peremptory challenges - Circumstantial evidence instructions - Flight instruction Judge(s) Concurring: Waller, C.J., Carlson P.J., Randolph, Lamar, Chandler, Pierce and King, JJ. Judge(s) Concurring Separately: Carlson, P.J., Specially Concurs With Separate Written Opinion Joined by Waller, C.J., Dickinson, P.J., Lamar and Chandler, JJ. Dissenting Author : Kitchens, J. Procedural History: Jury Trial Nature of the Case: CRIMINAL - FELONY |
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| Trial Court: |
Date of Trial Judgment: 05-21-2010 Appealed from: Hinds County Circuit Court Judge: W. Swan Yerger Disposition: Appellant was convicted of two counts of capital murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, without the possibility of parole. District Attorney: Robert Shuler Smith Case Number: 07-0-627 |
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| Party Name: | Attorney Name: | |||
| Appellant: | Shawn States |
VIRGINIA LYNN WATKINS
WILLIAM R. LABARRE
ALISON OLIVER KELLY |
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| Appellee: | State of Mississippi | OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL: LISA LYNN BLOUNT SCOTT STUART |
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| Topic: | Capital murder - Peremptory challenges - Circumstantial evidence instructions - Flight instruction |
| Summary of the Facts: | Shawn States was found guilty of capital murder while in the commission of armed robbery. States was sentenced to two terms of life in prison, without the possibility of parole, to be served consecutively. He appeals. |
| Summary of Opinion Analysis: | Issue 1: Peremptory challenges States argues that the State exercised its peremptory strikes in a discriminatory manner. States made his Batson challenge when the State struck its first seven potential jurors, all of whom were African-American females. The trial court, however, found that States did not make a prima facie showing of discrimination; thus, the court did not require the State to come forward with neutral reasons for excluding the potential jurors. To establish a prima facie case, defendants must establish that they are members of a cognizable class, such as a racial group; the prosecution used peremptory strikes to remove venire members in that class; and the facts and circumstances give rise to an inference that the prosecution used peremptory strikes to purposefully remove individuals of that class. A defendant has standing to challenge the exclusion of a juror even if that juror is not of the defendant’s race. A defendant can establish a prima facie case by demonstrating that the percentage of the State’s peremptory strikes exercised on members of the protected class was significantly higher than the percentage of members of the protected class in the venire. In this case, the record does not contain the percentage of African-Americans in the venire. The presumption is in favor of the trial court, and the burden is on the appellant to demonstrate reversible error. Thus, in the absence of this information, the trial court’s decision was not clearly erroneous. Issue 2: Circumstantial evidence instructions States argues that the court erred in refusing all three of States’s proposed circumstantial-evidence instructions. When a case is based entirely on circumstantial evidence – as opposed to direct evidence – the jury is instructed that every other reasonable hypothesis, except that of guilt, must be excluded to convict. Circumstantial evidence is evidence that, without going directly to prove the existence of a fact, gives rise to a logical inference that such fact does exist. Here, no forensic evidence linked States to the crime, and no eyewitness testified. The question, then, is whether States’s statement to police was an admission or confession to a significant element of felony murder. States argues that he denied ever handling a gun and that he gave his taped statement only because the police threatened to charge his girlfriend with the murders. States also argues that his statement – which he recanted at trial – cannot be considered direct evidence. Although States did not confess or admit to handling a gun or personally shooting the two victims, he admitted to turning up the volume on the television when a fictitious person was going to shoot them. States, therefore, admitted that he was in the apartment when the murders occurred, and that he participated in the murders as well. Further, States admitted taking the vehicle of one of the victims after the murders, which supplied the underlying felony necessary for capital murder. Although States said another person had murdered the two men, he later recanted the story and admitted that the person was fictitious. States cites no authority for the proposition that recanting an admission entitles a defendant to a circumstantial-evidence instruction. And where a defendant’s statement – recanted or not – is an admission or confession to a significant element of the crime charged, the statement remains as direct evidence. Issue 3: Flight instruction States argues that the court erred in granting a flight instruction. Only unexplained flight merits a flight instruction, and flight instructions are to be given only in cases where that circumstance has considerable probative value. The trial court looked at States’s actions immediately following the murders – that he took the car belonging to one of the victims, that he took many of the victim’s personal items, that he took the car instead of flying – and accepted the State’s flight instruction. But States provided an explanation for his trip to Miami – that he was going to see his girlfriend who was about to be deployed to Iraq. Also, driving the car to Miami in the absence of any evidence of a pursuit, or States’s belief that he was about to be discovered, renders a flight instruction almost void of any probative value in this case. However, in the context of the overwhelming evidence of States’s guilt, the trial court’s error in giving the flight instruction was harmless. |
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