Fulgham v. State
| Decision Date | 28 October 2010 |
| Docket Number | NO. 2007-DP-01312-SCT,2007-DP-01312-SCT |
| Parties | KRISTI LEIGH FULGHAM v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT: OFFICE OF CAPITAL DEFENSE COUNSEL BY: JAMES LAPPAN
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE: OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL BY: JASON L. DAVIS MARVIN L. WHITE, JR.
DISTRICT ATTORNEY: FORREST ALLGOOD
NATURE OF THE CASE: CRIMINAL-DEATH PENALTY
DISPOSITION: CONVICTION OF CAPITAL MURDER, AFFIRMED. SENTENCE OF DEATH, REVERSED AND REMANDED
EN BANC.
LAMAR, JUSTICE, FOR THE COURT:
¶1. Kristi Fulgham was convicted of capital murder1 and sentenced to death for killing her husband, Joey Fulgham.2 Fulgham claims numerous errors at the guilt and sentencingphases of her trial. We find merit in one assignment of error: The trial court committed reversible error by limiting mitigation evidence. Specifically, the court erred by refusing to allow social worker Adrienne Dorsey-Kidd to testify to her observations as mitigating evidence at the sentencing phase. So we affirm Fulgham's conviction of capital murder and reverse her sentence of death and remand for a new sentencing hearing.
FACTS
¶2. Kristi and Joey Fulgham married in 1991 and lived in the Starkville area. They had two children, Tyler and Darian Fulgham. Both children lived with them, along with Hayley, Fulgham's daughter by another man.
¶3. Approximately a year and a half prior to Joey's death, Fulgham and her children moved out of the marital home and began living with Fulgham's boyfriend, Kyle Harvey. However, by May 2003, Fulgham had moved back in with Joey, and the two were working on their marriage.3 On Sunday, May 11, 2003, Joey's body was discovered with a fatal gunshot wound to the head. Under the State's theory, Fulgham killed her husband for insurance proceeds and robbed him of his wallet (and its contents) and a computer's central processing unit (CPU).
¶4. Shannon Fulgham, Joey's brother, testified that he had worked with Joey at a car dealership, and they were paid every Friday around lunch time. Shannon stated that on May 9, 2003, Joey had cashed his paycheck for approximately $1,020 and had placed the moneyin his wallet. He further testified that he and Joey had planned to attend an air show on Saturday, May 10, 2003, but that Joey did not answer Shannon's phone calls when he called around 11:00 a.m. or 11:30 a.m. Shannon also testified that he had stopped by Joey and Kristi Fulgham's home around 12:00 p.m. or 12:30 p.m. and that Joey had not answered the door. When Shannon did not hear from his brother by Sunday afternoon, he cut the screen on Joey's living room window and entered the home at approximately 5:30 p.m. He found Joey lying face down in bed and called 911.
¶5. Kyle Harvey met Kristi Fulgham in 2002, and she and her three children began living with him in Jackson in March 2002. Kyle testified that Fulgham later moved back into her home with Joey. Kyle stated that Fulgham had planned to live with Joey until she found a new home, and that she would come to Jackson to look at homes for sale in the area. Kyle testified that Fulgham had told him that she was going to inherit $300,000 from her grandmother.
¶6. Kyle stated that he and Fulgham had planned a trip to the Mississippi Gulf Coast for Mother's Day weekend, May 9-11, 2003. Fulgham had told Kyle that she would pay for the trip, even though she was unemployed at the time. Kyle stated that Fulgham had picked up her brother, Tyler Edmonds, on Friday night, and she had called Kyle at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday morning (May 10) and informed him that she was on her way to Jackson. Fulgham, her three children, and Tyler Edmonds were waiting at Kyle's apartment when he arrived home from work on Saturday morning at approximately 10:30 or 11:00 a.m. Kyle stated that they had proceeded to the Coast, and that Fulgham had a large amount of cash on her person.
Kyle also testified that Fulgham had paid in cash for souvenirs, food, and their hotel room at the Beau Rivage Hotel. They spent Saturday night on the Coast and returned to Jackson at approximately 5 p.m. on Sunday.
¶7. David Noel, Joey's stepfather, testified that Tyler and Darian Fulgham routinely had spent Friday nights with him. David testified that he had picked up Tyler and Darian between 4 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. on Friday, May 9, 2003. David stated that Fulgham, her three children, and Tyler Edmonds were home at the time. Fulgham informed him that she would pick up Tyler and Darian early the next morning because she was taking the children to the Coast. David testified that Fulgham called him between 4:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. Saturday morning and arrived after 5 a.m. to pick up the boys.
¶8. Robert Elmore, chief investigator for the Oktibbeha County Sheriff's Department, received a call to process the homicide scene at the Fulgham home. He found Joey lying face down with a gunshot wound to the head. Robert searched the home for evidence but did not find any shell casings or Joey's wallet. He also stated that the carpet in the living room was faintly outlined in the shape of a CPU.
¶9. Robert testified that the house had security lights around the perimeter but that four light bulbs had been unscrewed, which prevented them from automatically turning on. Jason Pressley, who in 2003 worked for the Mississippi Crime Laboratory, conducted a latent-print examination on the light bulbs and found Kristi Fulgham's print on one of them. Pressley testified that he would not expect to find a well-developed print on a light bulb that had beenon for an extended period of time, evidencing that the light bulbs had been recently unscrewed.
¶10. Dr. Steven Hayne testified that he had performed an autopsy on Joey. He stated that an entrance gunshot wound was located at the back of Joey's head, and that he had extracted a small-caliber lead bullet consistent with a.22 caliber projectile. Dr. Hayne stated that Joey had died from the gunshot wound. He also testified that Joey's death had occurred approximately thirty-six to forty-eight hours prior to discovery of the body.
¶11. Randy Simpson, Tyler Edmonds's first cousin, testified that he had gone to Tyler Edmonds's house almost daily. He stated that two.22 caliber weapons had been in Tyler Edmonds's house prior to Joey's death, but that the older.22 was currently missing. Randy testified that the.22 was a single-shot, bolt-action, and that Tyler Edmonds was not strong enough to pull back the firing mechanism.
¶12. Danny Edmonds, Kristi Fulgham's biological father, testified that she had asked him for a gun about a week or two prior to Joey's death. He stated that Fulgham had told him that she Danny also stated that Fulgham had told him, "I want him dead, and that he has a life insurance policy, and... the kids would get $300,000, and I would get $200,000." He testified that Fulgham had offered to buy him a Cadillac if he "would keep his mouth shut."
¶13. Scotty Carrithers testified that he had met Joey in the National Guard and that in 2003, he had handled life-insurance records for the National Guard unit in Ackerman. Scotty stated that Joey had two life insurance policies. The first policy was worth $55,000, and Kristi Fulgham was the named beneficiary. The second policy was worth $255,000, and Kristi Fulgham was initially the named beneficiary, but Joey had changed the beneficiary from Kristi to his mother. Scotty stated that about a month prior to Joey's death, Fulgham had called him inquiring about the amount of Joey's life insurance. Scotty informed her that Joey had signed a privacy statement and that he could not release that information to her.
¶14. The jury found Fulgham guilty of killing her husband while engaged in the commission of a robbery. At the sentencing phase, the jury found unanimously beyond a reasonable doubt that Kristi Fulgham had intended that the killing of Joey Fulgham take place and had contemplated that lethal force would be employed. The jury further found beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of two aggravators: (1) the capital murder was committed for pecuniary gain; and (2) the capital murder was committed during the commission of a robbery. Lastly, the jury unanimously found that the mitigating evidence did not outweigh the aggravating evidence, and that Fulgham should suffer the penalty of death.
DISCUSSION
¶15. For ease of discussion, we have reordered the issues raised by Fulgham in her appellate brief. Where two issues are interrelated, we have combined them. And because we reverse for a new sentencing hearing, we decline to address those penalty-phase issues that now are moot on appeal and not likely to reoccur on resentencing.
Standard of Review
¶16. Fulgham's conviction rests upon circumstantial evidence. In a case based on circumstantial evidence, "[i]t is fundamental that convictions of crime cannot be sustained on proof which amounts to no more than a possibility or even when it amounts to a probability, but it must rise to the height which will exclude every reasonable doubt[.]"4 Further, this Court applies heightened scrutiny to capital-murder convictions where a sentence of death has been imposed.5 We repeatedly have ruled that "'[w]hat may be harmless error in a case with less at stake [may become] reversible error when the penalty is death."6
Guilt Phase
¶17. This Court has ruled that "'[t]he trial court enjoys considerable discretion regarding the form and substance of jury instructions.'"7 " "8 In order to...
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