KELLER: .... Don't know why I did it, but I did it. I asked her for a pack of cigarettes. When she turned around, I pulled my gun out and when she turn back around, I told her give me all the money. She started screaming no. I just shot her ....
none of the statements given by Jason Lee Keller were “coerced” by the improper actions of the investigating law enforcement officers. Further, the Court finds that even if the first two statements are held to be “coerced,” the third statement was freely and voluntarily given after an intelligent and knowing waiver of Keller's rights under Miranda and sufficiently removed and distinguishable from the conditions present during the first two statements to be “purged of the primary taint,” if any, of those statements. Finally, the Court finds that the information obtained in the first two statements was not “used to obtain additional information” from Keller in the third statement.
The essential elements of due process of law are notice and an opportunity to be heard and to defend in an orderly proceeding adapted to the nature of the case before a tribunal having jurisdiction of the cause.
Ordinarily, ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims are more appropriately brought during post-conviction proceedings. This is because during direct appeals the Court is limited to the trial court record in its review of the claim, and there may be instances in which insufficient evidence exists within the record to address the claim adequately. Wilcher v. State, 863 So.2d 776, 825 (Miss.2003). In such a case, the appropriate procedure is to deny relief, preserving the defendant's right to argue the issue through a petition for post-conviction relief. Read v. State, 430 So.2d 832, 837 (Miss.1983).
Witnesses in the county, circuit, and chancery courts shall receive one dollar and fifty cents per day and five cents for each mile going to and returning from the courthouse to their homes by the nearest route, and such tolls and ferriages as they may actually be obliged to pay; but mileage, toll, and ferriage shall be charged but once at each term of court, and a charge shall not be made for mileage except that traveled in this state.
[Defense counsel]: There are three choices that you have when you go back into jury room: death, life without and we can't make up our minds. When you say we can't make up our minds the judge is required under the law to give the defendant life without.
[Defense counsel]: You will be required, and I must say this individually, each of you individually, will be required to decide whether this defendant is so far beyond redemption that he should be killed.
[Defense counsel]: ... The judge won't make that decision. No other appeal court is going to make this decision.
[Defense counsel]: ... In any case, that is the real decision you will be required to make, and you must make this decision individually. It takes, and the court will instruct you, that it takes 12 of you to impose either sentence.10
[Defense counsel]: Do any of you believe that you must reach a verdict when you go back and decide what the sentence will be? That you must decide one way or the other. That all 12 of you must decide that way. Do any of you believe that to be true?
[Defense counsel]: Ladies and gentlemen, you understand that you are not required by the law to go back into the jury room after you've reached a verdict and you're deciding on a sentence, you're back there to decide life or death, that you are not required to reach a verdict of death. Do you understand that? Does everyone understand that? That's the point that I was trying to make.
A juror who will automatically vote for the death penalty in every case will fail in good faith to consider the evidence of aggravating and mitigating circumstances as the instructions require him to do. Indeed, because such a juror has already formed an opinion on the merits, the presence or absence of either aggravating or mitigating circumstances is entirely irrelevant to such a juror. Therefore, based on the requirement of impartiality embodied in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, a capital defendant may challenge for cause any prospective juror who maintains such views. If even one such juror is empaneled and the death sentence is imposed, the State is disentitled to execute the sentence.
Where ... a prospective juror in a criminal case fails to respond to a relevant, direct, and unambiguous question presented by defense counsel on voir dire, although having knowledge of the information sought to be elicited, the trial court should, upon motion for a new trial, determine whether the question propounded to the juror was (1) relevant to the voir dire examination; (2) whether it was unambiguous; and (3) whether the juror had substantial knowledge of the information sought to be elicited. If the trial court's determination of these inquiries is in the affirmative, the court *847 should then determine if prejudice to the defendant in selecting the jury reasonably could be inferred from the juror's failure to respond.
[T]he reason that question-first is catching on is as obvious as its manifest purpose, which is to get a confession the suspect would not make if he understood his rights at the outset; the sensible underlying assumption is that with one confession in hand before the warnings, the interrogator can count on getting its duplicate, with trifling additional trouble. Upon hearing warnings only in the aftermath of interrogation and just after making a confession, a suspect would hardly think he had a genuine right to remain silent, let alone persist in so believing once the police began to lead him over the same ground again.
Invocation of the right to counsel is a rigid, prophylactic rule which prohibits further questioning until an attorney is made available or the defendant knowingly and voluntarily waives his right. See Edwards, 451 U.S. 477, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378. On the other hand, invocation of the right to silence concerns whether an officer scrupulously honors a defendant's right to cease questioning for a reasonable time, after which questioning may resume if the defendant knowingly and voluntarily waives this right. See Neal v. State, 451 So.2d 743, 755 (Miss.1984).
KELLER: ... Don't know why I did it, but I did it. I asked her for a pack of cigarettes. When she turned around, I pulled my gun out and when she turn back around, I told her give me all the money. She started screaming no. I just shot her ....
There may not always be a necessity to tell the whole story. Cases such as this illustrate the point that the testimony of each witnesses and each item of evidence offered may or may not be relevant. Some evidence which is not necessary for the State to prove its case of capital murder ... could be unduly prejudicial to a defendant. Thus, all such evidence under Rule 404(b) must be filtered through Rule 403.
[A]ppellant ... questions the propriety of introducing into evidence a tape recording, along with a transcript of same, of an out-of-court statement made by the appellant with reference to the shooting. Prior to the jury's hearing the tape the court offered a cautionary instruction advising the jurors that the tape was the primary evidence of what was or was not recorded and that the transcript was being furnished for their convenience in following the tape. This procedure was approved in United States v. Onori, 535 F.2d 938 (5th Cir.1976). We find no error in this procedure.
In Westbrook v. State, 658 So.2d 847, 849 (Miss.1995), this Court found that photographs of a victim have evidentiary value when they aid in describing the circumstances of the killing, Williams v. State, 354 So.2d 266 (Miss.1978); describe the location of the body and cause of death, Ashley v. State, 423 So.2d 1311 (Miss.1982); or supplement or clarify witness testimony, Hughes v. State, 401 So.2d 1100 (Miss.1981).
She's Ms. Hat Nguyen. She a loving, careful, you know, she's a real nice, sweet mother. She take care of her four kids. They lost their house right after—during the storm. They lost their house so they moved into that convenient store, and they lived inside there. She take care of two of her young kids. Well she got four kids total that live in that shop with no shower or nothing. You know, they cook and clean in there .... I mean, they were a nice family. They try to do what they got to do to survive through their life....
This is the guilt or innocence phase of the trial. In order for you to actually consider a sentence, that would be in the next phase of the trial, but in order for that to happen you must return a verdict of guilty against Mr. Keller for his crime against Mrs. Nguyen.
It is an improper influence to put the jury in a “box” by voir dire tactics which extract a promise, prior to trial, to ignore evidence favorable to the defendant. This promise or pledge prevents the jurors from considering all factors relative to the verdict. The jurors are then called upon during closing argument to fulfill that promise, and the effect—whether calculated or not—is to shame or coerce the jury into rejecting factors which would tend to mitigate against the death penalty. We charge the jury in a capital murder case to narrow and distinguish the cases deserving of the death penalty from those which do not warrant such an extreme punishment.
[A] lesser-included offense instruction should be granted unless the trial judge, and ultimately this Court, can say, taking the evidence in the light most favorable to the accused and considering all the reasonable inferences which may be drawn in favor of the accused from the evidence, that no reasonable jury could find the defendant guilty of a lesser-included offense (conversely, not guilty of at least one essential element of the principal charge).
The killing of a human being, without malice, in the heat of passion, but in a cruel or unusual manner, or by the use of a dangerous weapon, without authority of law, and not in necessary self-defense,....
There were no witnesses to this murder. The main evidence is the confession of Davis as testified to by [law enforcement]. Davis did not take the stand. Through his confession, Davis admitted that he had gone to [the victim's] trailer for the purpose of getting money to buy drugs, and when [she] refused to give him the money, he killed her. Davis further confessed that he took the money and went to Jackson County to buy drugs .... In this instance, there is no denial in any form or fashion of the robbery, and there is no suggestion by Davis that it was anything other than capital murder. In this record, the evidence only supports capital murder.
[Keller] hasn't learned his lesson.... The crimes that are in the sentence order show[ ] that Mr. Keller, as pointed out by counsel opposite, has other felony convictions. The armed robbery conviction was his fifth felony conviction, his fifth. Yesterday you handed down number six. Six felony convictions, and is that a man who deserves to live the rest of his life in prison? That's a man that deserves the ultimate sentence of the death penalty.
[I]t is the duty of a trial counsel, if he deems opposing counsel overstepping the wide range of authorized argument, to promptly make objections and insist upon a ruling by the trial court. The trial judge first determines if the objection should be sustained or overruled. If the argument is improper, and the objection is sustained, it is the further duty of trial counsel to move for a mistrial. The circuit judge is in the best position to weigh the consequences of the objectionable argument, and unless serious and irreparable damage has been done, admonish the jury then and there to disregard the improper comment.
We conclude the legislature intended to relate the word “previously” to the time of trial, so that a conviction between the time the capital offense was committed and the time of trial for it may be admitted into evidence as an aggravating circumstance. We think this, because a *867 wide leeway is permitted the appellant to offer mitigating circumstances in avoidance of the death sentence, while an extremely limited type of behavior may be offered by the state in seeking capital punishment. In our opinion, the legislature undoubtedly intended a weighing of both at the time of sentencing so the past behavioral patterns likely to affect the defendant's future behavior might be evaluated by the jury in deciding whether the defendant will live or die. We think there is no more justification for terminating consideration of the defendant's criminal behavior at the time of the offense than there is for terminating consideration of favorable behavior at that time. All go to the question of whether the most severe punishment will serve a legitimate social purpose untainted by vindictiveness.
In considering a statute passed by the legislature, ... the first question a court should decide is whether the statute is ambiguous. If it is not ambiguous, the court should simply apply the statute according to its plain meaning and should not use principles of statutory construction. Whether the statute is ambiguous, or not, the ultimate goal of this Court in interpreting a statute is to discern and give effect to the legislative intent.
We have repeatedly held that convictions subsequent to the crime for which a person is being sentenced may be used as proof of aggravating circumstances. Taylor v. State, 672 So.2d 1246, 1275 (Miss.1996), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 994, 117 S.Ct. 486, 136 L.Ed.2d 379 (1996); Turner v. State, 573 So.2d 657, 670 (Miss.1990), cert. denied, 500 U.S. 910, 111 S.Ct. 1695, 114 L.Ed.2d 89 (1991); Leatherwood v. State, 435 So.2d 645, 651–52 (Miss.1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1084, 104 S.Ct. 1455, 79 L.Ed.2d 772 (1984); Jones v. State, 381 So.2d 983, 994 (Miss.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1003, 101 S.Ct. 543, 66 L.Ed.2d 300 (1980); Reddix v. State, 381 So.2d 999, 1009–10 (Miss.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 986, 101 S.Ct. 408, 66 L.Ed.2d 251 (1980).
The Court instructs the jury that decision to afford an individual Defendant mercy and thereby sentence him to life imprisonment without parole would not violate the law of this State or your oath as jurors. Even if there are no mitigating circumstances in this case which are worthy of your consideration, then nevertheless, you may still sentence the Defendant to life imprisonment without parole.
If you, the juryoose to sentence the Defendant to life imprisonment without parole, the Defendant shall never be eligible for parole. Further, his life sentence without the possibility of parole shall not be reduced or suspended.
[A] defendant who alleges an equal protection violation has the burden of proving “the existence of purposeful discrimination.” Whitus v. Georgia, 385 U.S. 545, 550, 87 S.Ct. 643, 646, 17 L.Ed.2d 599 (1967). A corollary to this principle is that a criminal defendant must prove that the purposeful discrimination “had a discriminatory effect” on him. Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 598, 608, 105 S.Ct. 1524, 1531, 84 L.Ed.2d 547 (1985).
Ordinarily, ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims are more appropriately brought during post-conviction proceedings. This is because during direct appeals the Court is limited to the trial court record in its review of the claim, and there may be instances in which insufficient evidence exists within the record to address the claim adequately. Wilcher v. State, 863 So.2d 776, 825 (Miss.2003). In such a case, the appropriate procedure is to deny relief, preserving the defendant's right to argue the issue through a petition for post-conviction relief. Read v. State, 430 So.2d 832, 837 (Miss.1983).
End of Document | © 2024 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. |