Jones v. State

• Decision Date: 11 August 2016
• Docket Number: No. 2014–KA–00993–SCT.,2014–KA–00993–SCT.
• Citation: 203 So.3d 600
• Parties: Lamarcus JONES a/k/a Lamarcus Antwain Jones a/k/a Lamarcus A. Jones a/k/a L.A. Jones. v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

203 So.3d 600

Lamarcus JONES a/k/a Lamarcus Antwain Jones a/k/a Lamarcus A. Jones a/k/a L.A. Jones.

v.STATE of Mississippi.

No. 2014–KA–00993–SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Aug. 11, 2016.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 17, 2016.

Charles W. Wright, Jr., Rebecca Taff Wright, Meridian, attorneys for appellant.

Office of the Attorney General by Scott Stuart, attorney for appellee.

EN BANC.

KITCHENS, Justice, for the Court:

¶ 1. Marveo Lane was shot and killed in the early morning hours of August 2, 2008. Mareno Hubbard testified that Lamarcus Jones was the shooter. Jones was indicted for Lane's murder in 2010 and convicted in 2014. He received a life sentence. After Jones's conviction and sentence, Hubbard pled guilty to manslaughter and was given a sentence of twenty years, with eight years suspended and credit for time served. Finding Jones's assignments of error to be unavailing, we affirm his conviction and sentence.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶ 2. Between 11:00 p.m. and 12:00 a.m., the night and early morning of August 1 and 2, 2008, Mareno Hubbard visited the Q5 Club, a nightclub located on Cedar Creek Road near Macon, Mississippi. After conversing with various acquaintances both inside and outside the nightclub, Hubbard returned inside and ventured onto the dance floor. While so engaged, Hubbard encountered Lamarcus Jones, who expressed a desire to "holla at" Hubbard, meaning "he needed to let me know something that he know that I don't know."

¶ 3. Hubbard and Jones then exited the building, whereupon Jones informed Hubbard that he (Jones) intended to "handle" someone, meaning he had a conflict with someone and needed "to get at" him. According to Hubbard, the guys from Baptist Hill were "into it," fighting, with the guys from Brooksville. Hubbard and Jones then walked behind the nightclub to a fence line on the side of the club and went through a hole in the fence. Then Jones "retrieved the guns out of the corner of the fence line." The weapons, according to Hubbard, were hidden "in the bushes in the tall grass area." According to Hubbard, Jones handed him a .25 caliber pistol and kept the larger caliber gun. Upon obtaining the guns, Hubbard assured Jones that he "had his back," thus indicating that he intended to participate. The pair then "crossed the ditch and came back around onto the club's premises. And then we walked through the same trail that we went through the fence line."

¶ 4. With guns in hand, Hubbard and Jones moved to the right side of the club and approached a white car, a "Crown Vic." Hubbard testified that Jones walked to the driver's side of the car and that he remained behind the car in view of the rearview mirror. According to Hubbard, Jones then looked into the car "just to make sure it was the right guy." Jones took aim and fired at the car door, shattering the door's glass window. Lane, who was in the car, opened the car door and asked what was going on. At that point, according to Hubbard, Jones shot again, after which Lane drove away on Cedar Creek Road. Hubbard then fired a shot into the air, ostensibly to divert attention of the crowd from Jones. Hubbard and Jones then "took off running back [ ] toward the left of the club." They ran to Baptist Hill to Jones's grandmother's house. Hubbard and Jones then deposited the guns behind a dog house which was situated at the rear of the grandmother's house. Lane died of a massive internal hemorrhage which had resulted from a gunshot wound

.

¶ 5. Hubbard turned himself in on August 2, 2008, and was indicted for Lane's murder on September 22, 2008. Jones was named as a witness in the State's prosecution of Hubbard in a number of subpoenas from 2009 through 2014. On September 22, 2010, Hubbard gave a statement to Maurice Johnson, the investigator for the Noxubee County District Attorney's Office, in which he implicated Jones in the shooting of Lane.

¶ 6. Jones was indicted for Lane's murder on September 23, 2010. He was tried on March 13, 2012. The first trial resulted in a mistrial, declared on March 15, 2012, because a juror's father passed away during the trial and no alternate juror was available. Jones's second trial began on September 24, 2012, and that, too, resulted in a mistrial because "a juror had failed to answer a pertinent question on voir dire." One note from the jury foreman asked "[w]ould it be a conflict if a mother & son served on the same jury?" Another indicated that "[o]ne person keeps saying they need more evidence." On September 10, 2013, a third mistrial was declared, because a sufficient jury could not be impaneled, and trial was reset for March 24, 2014. On March 28, 2014, Jones was convicted of murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and ordered to pay a fine of $10,000, court costs, and "reasonable expenses of funeral and burial of Marveo Lane."

¶ 7. On May 22, 2014, Hubbard pled guilty to manslaughter. He was sentenced that day to twenty years, with eight years suspended and twelve years to serve with credit for the six years he already had served.

¶ 8. On appeal, Jones raises five issues.

ANALYSIS

1. Whether the verdict was against the overwhelming weight of the evidence.¹

¶ 9. Jones claims on appeal that the jury verdict amounted to an unconscionable injustice and should be set aside because Hubbard's testimony that Jones had been the shooter was motivated by Hubbard's desire for a reduced charge and sentence.

¶ 10. This Court has held that:

We will only disturb a jury verdict when "it is so contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence that to allow it to stand would sanction an unconscionable injustice." Bush v. State, 895 So.2d 836, 844 [ (Miss.2005) ] (citing Herring v. State, 691 So.2d 948, 957 (Miss.1997) ). This Court acts as a "thirteenth juror" and views the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict. Bush, 895 So.2d at 843 (citing Herring, 691 So.2d at 957....)

Blanchard v. State, 55 So.3d 1074, 1079 (Miss.2011) (quoting Harris v. State, 970 So.2d 151, 156 (Miss.2007) ).

¶ 11. It is true, as Jones relates, that "the only person to testify that Lamarcus Jones was the person who shot Marveo Lane was Mareno Hubbard." Jones argues that Hubbard lacked credibility because he was motivated to lie to obtain a reduced charge and sentence recommendation from the district attorney. We have held, however, that " ‘[t]he uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice may be sufficient to convict an accused.... [This] rule is inapplicable in those cases where the testimony is unreasonable, self-contradictory or substantially impeached.’ " Osborne v. State, 54 So.3d 841, 846 (Miss.2011) (quoting Ballenger v. State, 667 So.2d 1242, 1253 (Miss.1995) ). "Only slight corroboration of an accomplice's testimony is required to sustain a conviction." Osborne, 54 So.3d at 847 (citing Mangum v. State, 762 So.2d 337, 342 (Miss.2000) ). "The testimony that must be corroborated is the part connecting the defendant to the crime." Osborne, 54 So.3d at 847 (citing Holmes v. State, 481 So.2d 319, 322 (Miss.1985) ). "If the testimony is not corroborated, a cautionary jury instruction is required." Osborne, 54 So.3d at 847 (citing Williams v. State, 32 So.3d 486, 491 (Miss.2010) ).

¶ 12. Here, Jones claims that Hubbard's testimony was " ‘unreasonable, self-contradictory or substantially impeached.’ " Osborne, 54 So.3d at 846 (quoting Ballenger, 667 So.2d at 1253 ). He points to Jones's statement, in which Jones claimed Hubbard had been the shooter. Jones's statement was not admitted at trial and Jones did not testify. He also points to the statement of defense witness Retina Stallings, in which she related that Hubbard had said at the Q5 that he was going to Brooksville, Mississippi, for the purpose of killing someone. Stallings indicated further that she heard gun shots and "saw Mareno take off running toward the woods" but that she "didn't actually see Mareno pull the trigger...." Her statement was marked for identification purposes but was not admitted into evidence. Stallings's trial testimony was consistent with her statement that she had not seen who shot Lane.

¶ 13. Further, Jones cites some "inferences and consistencies [sic]" in Hubbard's testimony. According to Jones, Hubbard testified that Jones had used his left hand to fire into Lane's vehicle, but that Hubbard, himself, was left handed. Hubbard testified that he intended to run "a whole another direction," but that he had followed Jones through the crowd instead. According to Jones, "[t]he inference could be drawn that Mareno Hubbard was going to run away from the crowd and run into the woods to hide to keep from being identified as the shooter of Marveo Lane" and "[a]n inference could also be drawn that an innocent man would run toward the crowd and away from where a man was being shot when he has nothing to hide." Finally, Jones cites a discrepancy in the testimony of Hubbard versus the statement he gave regarding how he and Jones had obtained the guns. In the written statement Hubbard gave to police, he said that Jones had pulled the guns out of his shirt. At trial, however, Hubbard testified that the guns had been hidden in some bushes behind the club.

¶ 14. The State responds by mentioning the evidence which corroborated Hubbard's testimony. Tissia Graham, who testified for the State, observed Hubbard and Jones walk past her with guns in hand. She heard three gunshots, after which a white car exited the parking lot, and the pair walked back by "very quickly." Graham did not, however, see who had fired the shots. State's witness Tommy Orr likewise observed Hubbard and Jones walking past him with guns, heard gunshots, and observed the two men walking away from the club "faster." The testimony of Marcus Smith, another State's witness, was consistent with that of Graham and Orr.

¶ 15. Jones is correct that Hubbard's testimony that Jones was the shooter was not corroborated. None of the witnesses observed which of the pair was the shooter. But it cannot be said that...