Maye v. State
| Decision Date | 25 October 2022 |
| Docket Number | 2020-KA-00100-COA |
| Citation | 350 So.3d 263 |
| Parties | Robert Anthony MAYE a/k/a Robert Maye, Appellant v. STATE of Mississippi, Appellee |
| Court | Mississippi Court of Appeals |
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT: OFFICE OF STATE PUBLIC DEFENDER BY: HUNTER NOLAN AIKENS
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE: OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL BY: LAUREN GABRIELLE CANTRELL
BEFORE WILSON, P.J., McCARTY AND SMITH, JJ.
WILSON, P.J., FOR THE COURT:
¶1. Following a jury trial, Robert Maye was convicted of first-degree murder for shooting and killing his girlfriend. On appeal, Maye argues that the trial judge erred by refusing a heat-of-passion manslaughter instruction and by admitting a gruesome photograph. We find no error and affirm.
¶2. Maye lived with Jacqueline Davis and her two children in Davis's mobile home in Rawls Springs in Forrest County. Maye and Davis had been dating for about six years. On November 2, 2018, Davis was working at Shoney's in Hattiesburg. Maye went to Shoney's to get a house key from Davis. Davis appeared to be scared, so Davis's coworker Jamia Rogers went outside and gave Maye the key while Davis hid in the back of the restaurant. Rogers noticed that Maye was visibly upset when she gave him the key. After work, Davis picked up her cousin Monet Williams, and they went to Davis's home to change clothes before attending a football game.
¶3. Maye met Davis and Williams at the door at Davis's home. Williams sat in the living room with Maye while Davis gathered clothes in her bedroom. Williams went outside to look for Davis's daughter, M.D.,1 and sat in Davis's car. A neighbor dropped M.D. off at home, and M.D. went inside. M.D. testified that a stranger opened the door for her and that Maye told her to go to her room and not open her door for anyone. The stranger was later identified as Maye's stepbrother Lee Thompson. M.D. heard Maye tell Thompson to "give [him] the gun." M.D. then heard Davis say to Maye, "What are you doing to me?" Davis sounded scared. M.D. next heard a gunshot. A few minutes later, Williams looked up and saw Maye walking toward Davis's car from the woods behind the home. Maye told her to call 911 because Davis had been shot. Williams ran into the home and found Davis lying on the bathroom floor and a "bunch of blood."
¶4. Deputy Kenny Johnson of the Forrest County Sheriff's Department was notified of a possible shooting at Davis's home and was the first law enforcement officer to arrive at the scene. He entered the home and found Maye sitting on the bathroom floor with Davis's body in his lap. Johnson described Maye as "calm" and "not upset about anything." Johnson arrested Maye, and an investigator performed gunshot residue tests on Maye and Williams. Gunshot residue was positively identified on Maye's left palm and the back of his left hand. Particles indicative of gunshot residue were found on Maye's face, right palm, and the back of his right hand. Williams's test results showed only particles indicative of gunshot residue on the back of her right hand, her face, and her left palm.2
¶5. Investigator Jeff Byrd testified that there were bloody towels near Davis's body on the bathroom floor, and it appeared that someone had tried to clean up some of the blood. Also, there was "some blood splatter on the tub," making it appear that there had been "some kind of altercation." Williams testified that the bathroom appeared differently in Byrd's crime-scene photographs than when she had seen it just after Davis was killed. Williams said that when she first entered the bathroom, there was more blood on the floor and there were no bloody towels.
¶6. A K-9 search team was deployed in the woods behind the home, and a dog alerted to a claw hammer, indicating that the "hammer ... had recent human odor on it." Byrd testified that Davis had two small holes above her left eye. At the time, this caused Byrd to suspect that the hammer was the murder weapon. Officers also found a box of .40-caliber ammunition in the woods behind the home. In a cabinet inside the home, they found an empty box for a Hi-Point .40-caliber S&W pistol.
¶7. Dr. Mark LeVaughn, Chief Medical Examiner for the State, testified that Davis died of a gunshot wound to her head. There was no evidence of any other traumatic injury. Bullet fragments recovered from Davis's head were consistent with .40-caliber ammunition.
¶8. Officers interviewed Maye at the sheriff's office on two separate days. Maye initially claimed that on the day of Davis's murder, after Williams walked outside the mobile home, he and Davis walked into Davis's son's bedroom and encountered a man who was pointing a gun at them. At first, Maye claimed that he did not know the man and had never seen him before. Later, however, Maye said that he had seen the man several times but did not know much about him other than his nickname. Finally, Maye said that the man was his stepbrother, Lee Thompson. Maye said that Davis ran across the home to her bathroom after she saw Thompson with a gun. He said that M.D. walked into the home shortly thereafter, and he told M.D. to go to her room, shut her door, and not open her door for anyone. Maye said that Thompson then followed him into the bedroom and told him and Davis to get on their knees in the bathroom and bow their heads. According to Maye, Thompson shot Davis and then fled.
¶9. Maye's account of what occurred next also changed over time. Initially, Maye said that he immediately grabbed Davis and held her before going outside to look for Thompson in the woods behind the home. He denied carrying a hammer or a box of bullets into the woods. At trial, Maye added that he carried the hammer to the woods when he went to look for Thompson.
¶10. Officers interviewed Thompson after he was arrested several days later. Thompson initially denied being at the home when Davis was shot. Eventually, he admitted that he was in the living room when Maye shot Davis and that he ran from the home immediately after he heard the gunshot. Before Maye's trial, Thompson accepted a plea bargain that required him to testify against Maye. At trial, Thompson testified that he and Maye met at Checker's in Hattiesburg. Maye and Thompson drove to Lawrence County and back to Rawls Springs in Davis's Chevrolet Tahoe, drinking beer as they went. When they arrived at Davis's mobile home, Maye handed Thompson a gun. When M.D. came home, Thompson opened the door for her, and Maye took her to her room. According to Thompson, Maye initially wanted him to "scare" Davis but then offered to give Thompson his Tahoe if Thompson would kill Davis. Thompson "wasn't with that," so Maye took the gun back from Thompson and then shot Davis himself. Thompson ran from the mobile home like "a track star" as soon as he heard the gunshot.
¶11. Maye testified at trial. He denied killing Davis and alleged that Thompson shot and killed her. Maye testified that he and Thompson had gone to a pawn shop in Monticello on the day of the murder. Maye bought hollow point bullets for his gun at the pawn shop. He testified that he needed the bullets "for protection" because there had been a break-in at Davis's mobile home. Maye and Thompson then drove to Davis's mobile home in Rawls Springs. Maye claimed that Thompson shot Davis at the mobile home and then fled.
¶12. A Forrest County grand jury indicted Maye for first-degree murder (Count I); indicted Maye and Thompson for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder (Count II); and indicted Thompson as an accessory before the fact to first-degree murder (Count III).3 Thompson pled guilty to Count II. Prior to Maye's trial, the State nolle prosequied Count II as to Maye. After a four-day trial, the jury found Maye guilty of first-degree murder. The court sentenced Maye to life imprisonment. Maye filed a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or a new trial, which was denied, and a notice of appeal. On appeal, he argues that the trial judge erred by refusing a jury instruction on heat-of-passion manslaughter and by admitting a gruesome photo of Davis's face into evidence.
¶13. Maye argues that the trial judge erred by refusing to instruct the jury on the lesser-included offense of heat-of-passion manslaughter. See Miss. Code Ann. § 97-3-35 (Rev. 2020). Although Maye testified and denied that he had killed Davis, he argues that he was entitled to a heat-of-passion manslaughter instruction based on the State's theory that he was angry that Davis was in the process of ending their long-term relationship. However, the trial judge refused Maye's proposed instruction on heat-of-passion manslaughter because Maye denied killing Davis, and the judge found that there was no evidence in the record to support the instruction.
¶14. We review de novo the refusal of a lesser-included-offense instruction. Franklin v. State , 136 So. 3d 1021, 1026 (¶11) (Miss. 2014) (citing Gilmore v. State , 119 So. 3d 278, 286 (¶13) (Miss. 2013) ). A defendant is entitled to a lesser-included-offense instruction only when there is "evidence in the record from which a jury reasonably could find him not guilty of the crime with which he was charged and at the same time find him guilty of a lesser-included offense." Id. at 1027 (¶11) (quoting Gilmore , 119 So. 3d at 286 (¶13) ). We will affirm the refusal of a lesser-included-offense instruction if—viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the defendant, and drawing all reasonable inferences in his favor—no reasonable jury could have found the defendant not guilty of the indicted offense and yet guilty of the lesser-included offense. Gilmore , 119 So. 3d at 286 (¶13).
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