Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours from the Mississippi Appeals Blog! To mark the occasion, I did a little research and found a suitable throwback decision from the Mississippi Supreme Court to summarize for you.
Old Ladies Home Ass’n v. Hall, 52 So. 2d 650 (Miss. 1951) (Civil – Contracts) Affirming the chancellor’s decision overruling special and general demurrers asserted by residual beneficiaries in an action brought by a devisee to enforce a contract between himself and the testatrix wherein the testatrix (an elderly widow at the time) agreed to devise her property to him if he would move his family into her home and provide her with room and board (which he did), holding that the bill of complaint was sufficient and that the statute of limitations began to run when the testatrix died, not when things went south due to the lack of butter at Thanksgiving dinner:
Complainant charged that, in fulfillment of the contract, he and his family lived in Mrs. Douglas’ residence, that he paid taxes on it and repaired it from time to time, and furnished her and her foster daughter with suitable and acceptable board and food, heat and lights and other comforts and necessities, until Thanksgiving Day of November, 1943, at which time Mrs. Douglas became enraged about complainant’s failure to have butter on the table, and ordered complainant and his family to get out of the house. It was averred that Mrs. Douglas at all times kept two loaded pistols and a dagger in her home, and threatened physical violence to complainant’s infant son and that complainant feared for the safety of himself and his family. Complainant told her that he wanted to remain in the home and carry out his part of the contract, as he had previously done, and as he thereafter remained ready, willing and able to do, but Mrs. Douglas drove them from her home and refused complainant’s services.
PRACTICE POINT – As we are not presently in the throes of World War II, there is really no excuse to run out of butter on Thanksgiving.
The Mississippi Supreme Court handed down four opinions last Thursday. There is an appeal of the dismissal of an MTCA claim on summary judgment, an appeal of a Medicaid reimbursement-rate decision, and an appeal by a victorious pro se party. The headliner, however, is the appeal of Willie Godbolt’s convictions for the infamous 2017 shooting of eight people in Lincoln County.
Federinko v. Forrest County, Mississippi, 2023-CA-00204-SCT (Civil – MTCA) Affirming the trial court’s grant of summary judgment for the defendant, holding that the plaintiff failed to allege a tortious or negligent act with respect to the MTCA defendants’ decision not to conduct an autopsy or obtain postmortem blood and fluids. (9-0)
Mississippi Division of Medicaid v. Women’s Pavilion of South Mississippi, PLLC, 2023-SA-00098-SCT (Civil – State Boards & Agencies) Affirming the chancery court’s decision vacating Medicaid’s reimbursement-rate decision, holding that the administrative officer did not have to defer to Medicaid’s initial decision but was to make findings of fact and a determination of the issues presented. (8-0: Beam did not participate)
Stratton v. McKey, 2023-CP-00451-SCT (Civil – Other) Affirming the circuit court’s denial of the pro se plaintiff’s Rule 60 motion to vacate a judgment in his favor that awarded him possession of his classic truck and monetary damages. (9-0)
Godbolt v. State, 2020-DP-00440-SCT (Criminal – Death Penalty – Direct Appeal) Affirming conviction of four counts of capital murder, four counts of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping, one count of attempted murder, and one count of armed robbery garnering four death sentences, six life sentences, and two twenty-year terms, holding that the trial court did not err in (1) denying a motion to server; (2) transferring venue to a neighboring county (with a jury drawn from a distant county); (3) “limiting” voir dire where the process lasted four days and produced nearly 800-pages of transcript; (4) denying a motion to suppress statements made to media and law enforcement; (5) denying a motion to suppress evidence obtained from the defendant’s home, vehicle, cell phone, other electronic devices; (6) allowing the defendant’s wife to testify under Rule 601(b)(2); (7) admitting evidence of prior bad acts; (8) admitting 911 calls; (9) not ordering a psychiatric evaluation that the defendant opposed; (10) admitting Facebook messages over an authentication objection; (11) only allowing the defendant (who exercised his right not to testify) limited time for allocution during closing arguments; (12) denying motion to exclude victim impact evidence; and the Supreme Court also (13) deferred the ineffective assistance claim to the PCR phase; (14) held that there was no Brady violation regarding the destruction of the defendant’s phone after all data and information from the phone were given to the defendant; (15) that the defendant’s right to an impartial jury was not violated; (16) held that there was no evidence of prosecutorial misconduct; (17) that the “heinous, atrocious or cruel” aggravator was not unconstitutional; (18) that the death penalty was not unconstitutional; (19) that the death penalty was not disproportional; (20) and that there was no error, so the cumulative error argument was without merit. (7-2: King dissented, joined by Kitchens)
NOTE– You should never treat my summaries as a substitute for reading cases that you intend to rely on. This is especially true in a case like this one. This is probably the longest summary I have posted, but I have only scratched the surface.
Other Orders
Love v. State, 2021-CT-01101-SCT (granting pro se cert petition)
Norwood v. Smith, 2021-IA-01404-SCT (dismissing interlocutory appeal)
Rehabilitation Centers, Inc. v. Williams, 2023-CT-00453-SCT (denying in part and dismissing in part petition for cert and reverse and stay of mandate or in the alternative petition for interlocutory appeal)
The Mississippi Supreme Court handed down to five opinions today. One wades into a contingency-fee contract dispute, one is a statutory interpretation case involving the bond for appeals by former public school employees, one addresses the admissibility of a defendant’s lay testimony that he suffers from PTSD, and two are related to Bar disciplinary proceedings.
Gilmer v. McRae, 2021-CA-00028-SCT (Civil – Contract) Affirming the trial court’s dismissal of a complaint stemming from a dispute over a contingency fee arrangement and its award of attorney’s fees, holding that the defendant’s attorneys (who were also defendants) were immune from suit as they were acting in their capacity as attorneys, there was no abuse of discretion in awarding attorney’s fees against the plaintiff, and there was no abuse of discretion in denying the plaintiff’s amended motion to amend. (9-0)
Greenville Public School District v. Thomas, 2021-IA-00456-SCT (Civil – State Boards and Agencies) Affirming on interlocutory appeal the chancellor’s decision setting the bond for an appeal by a former public school district employee, holding that section 37-9-113(2) does not require a bond to cover the cost of the transcript and that there was no abuse of discretion in setting the bond at the statutory minimum of $200. (8-1-0: Justice Ishee concurred in part and and in the result)
Bland v. State, 2021-KA-00973-SCT (Criminal – Felony) Affirming conviction of first-degree murder, holding that the trial court did not err by excluding the defendant’s lay testimony claiming he suffered from PTSD. (5-4-0: Justice Kitchen concurred in part and in the result, joined by Justice King, Justice Coleman, and Justice Ishee–this concurrence opined that the exclusion was error but that the error was harmless)
Louvier v. The Mississippi Bar, 2022-BR-00205-SCT (Civil – Bar Matters) Granting reinstatement over the Bar’s opposition. (9-0)
The Mississippi Bar v. Petty, 2022-BD-00402-SCT (Civil – Bar Matters) Ordering public reprimand and payment of the Bar’s costs. (9-0)
Other Orders
In Re: Advisory Committee on Rules, 89-R-99016-SCT (appointing or reappointing members of the Advisory Committee on Rules)
Daniels v. Family Dollar Stores of Mississippi, Inc., 2021-CT-00781-SCT (denying cert where COA affirmed summary judgment for defendant in slip and fall case as summarized here) [*Corrected link]
The Mississippi Court of Appeals handed down six opinions today. There are four criminal cases including one with an interesting issue that arose when only eleven jurors were polled about the verdict. There is also a termination of parental rights case and a PCR case.
Braziel v. State, 2021-KA-00603-COA (Criminal – Felony) Affirming conviction of burglary upon receipt of a Lindsey brief and in the absence of a pro se brief, holding that there were no arguable issues on appeal. (9-0: Judge Smith did not participate.)
C.P. v. Lowndes County Dept. of Child Protection Services, 2019-CA-01739-COA (Civil – Domestic Relations) Affirming the chancery court’s decision terminating parental rights of both natural parents, holding that there was clear and convincing evidence supporting the termination and that reunification efforts were not required, that the GAL’s efforts were “suboptimal” but harmless because there was other sufficient evidence, that it was error to not inform the parents of their rights at the outset of the bearing but it was harmless since the parents were represented and exercised their rights, and that the court did not commit reversible error adopting CPS’s proposed order verbatim without specific findings of fact. (6-4-0: Judge Wilson and Judge McCarty concurred in part and in the result without separate written opinion; Judge Westbrooks and Judge Lawrence concurred in the result only without separate written opinion.)
Maye v. State, 2020-KA-00100-COA (Criminal – Felony) Affirming conviction of first-degree murder, holding that the trial court did not err by refusing a heat-of-passion manslaughter instruction where the defendant denied killing the victim and there was no evidence to support the instruction and holding that there was no error in admitting a gruesome photo that had probative value. (6-3: Judge McDonald and Judge Lawrence concurred in part and in the result only without separate written opinion; Judge Westbrooks concurred in result only without separate written opinion.)
O’Quinn v. State, 2021-KA-00534-COA (Criminal – Felony) Affirming conviction of armed robbery, holding that there was no merit to the defendant’s argument that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to multiple instance of hearsay. (9-1-0: Judge Westbrooks concurred in the result only without separate written opinion.)
ASIDE – The opinion provides a colorful description of events that unfolded in the parking lot immediately after the robbery. It reads like a scene from Raising Arizona, complete with a two-year-old in the getaway car. Here is a portion:
Price v. State, 2019-KA-01890-COA (Criminal – Felony) Affirming conviction of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder, and possession of a firearm by a felony, holding that the conviction was supported by sufficient evidence and not against the overwhelming evidence, that the defendant could not complaint on appeal about the denial of a motion he opposed at trial, that ineffective assistance claims were denied without prejudice, that the defendant waived arguments that the trial judge should have recused, that there was no error in several jury-related issues including the trial court’s failure to poll all 12 jurors that was cured by retroactively polling the juror at an evidentiary hearing order by the Court of Appeals. (7-3: Judge McDonald dissented, joined by Judge Westbrooks and joined as to Parts I and II by Judge McCarty. The dissent took issue with the notion that the trial court’s failure to poll all 12 jurors could be cured on remand by a supplemental hearing.)
Skinner v. State, 2021-CA-00080-COA (Civil – PCR) Denying motion for rehearing, withdrawing original opinion, and substituting this modified opinion affirming the denial of a PCR motion, holding that the plaintiff was procedurally barred by res judicata and without merit and that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to consider evidence of a potential defense for the plaintiff’s 1994 conviction in sentencing him for his 2011 felony evasion. (5-4: Judge McCarty concurred in part dissented in part; Judge McDonald dissented, joined by Chief Judge Barnes, and Judge Westbrooks, and joined in part by Judge McCarty. Judge Emfinger did not participate.)
Other Orders
Ford v. State, 2020-KA-00278-COA (dismissing untimely pro se motion for rehearing) Garlington v. State, 2020-KA-00392-COA (denying rehearing) Towns v. Panola County Board of Supervisors, 2020-CA-01364-COA (denying rehearing) Skinner v. State, 2021-CA-00080-COA (denying rehearing) Robinson v. State, 2021-CP-01215-COA (dismissing appeal as moot)
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