Myers v. State

• Decision Date: 17 July 2014
• Docket Number: No. 2013–KA–00226–SCT.,2013–KA–00226–SCT.
• Citation: 145 So.3d 1143
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: Edward M. MYERS a/k/a Edward Myers v. STATE of Mississippi.

145 So.3d 1143

Edward M. MYERS a/k/a Edward Myers

v.STATE of Mississippi.

No. 2013–KA–00226–SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

July 17, 2014.

Office of State Public Defender by Hunter N. Aikens, George T. Holmes, attorneys for appellant.

Office of the Attorney General by Lisa L. Blount, John R. Henry, Jr., attorneys for appellee.

EN BANC.

WALLER, Chief Justice, for the Court:

¶ 1. Edward Myers appeals his conviction for the armed robbery of Gabriel Lewis. We find that the trial court abused its discretion in excluding the testimony of a defense witness where there was no evidence of a willful discovery violation. Accordingly, we reverse Myers's conviction and remand for a new trial. On remand, we direct the trial court to conduct a hearing to determine whether Myers's right to a speedy trial was violated.

FACTS

¶ 2. On October 28, 2004, Edward Myers was at his sister Yvette's house when he discovered that Yvette's teenage son Jeremy had possession of a handgun. Myers and Jeremy got into an argument over the handgun outside Yvette's house, and Myers was able to take the gun from Jeremy. Myers then fired the gun into the air twice. When Yvette heard the gunshots, she called the police. After she called the police, she followed Myers to see where he was going. She observed Myers walking along the railroad tracks towards a trucking lot about two blocks from her house. When he got to the lot, he got into a truck with another person, and Yvette saw them “light up,” meaning that they were smoking something. Yvette could not identify the other person in the truck.

¶ 3. Madison County Deputies John Harris and Stan Fisher responded to Yvette's disturbance call. The officers parked next to the trucking lot to wait for backup. Shortly thereafter, Gabriel Lewis approached them from the trucking lot and informed them that he had just been robbed. Lewis, a truck driver for J.B. Hunt, had been picking up a trailer at the trucking lot when a man armed with a handgun approached him, demanding money. The man had told Lewis that he had just killed a man down the road and was trying to get out of town. Lewis had given the man five dollars, and the man had run off.

¶ 4. As the officers were inspecting the trucking lot, a man carrying a handgun appeared from under a trailer and fled on foot from the scene. Harris and Fisher pursued the man on foot and apprehended him after a short chase. The officers recovered a.22 caliber pistol loaded with eight rounds, a crack pipe, and five one-dollar bills from the man. The officers took the man into custody and took him back to their patrol cars, where Lewis was still waiting. Lewis identified the man, Edward Myers, as the man who had robbed him. The police took a statement from Lewis at the scene. Lewis identified Myers by name in his written statement, but at trial he testified that he had never met Myers and that the police had not told him Myers's name.

¶ 5. A few days after his arrest, Myers gave a voluntary statement admitting to the robbery. Specifically, Myers stated, “I saw a man standing by his truck so I ran up to him with the pistol in my hand I asked him for some money. The man gave me four or five dollars and I ran off.” At trial, though, Myers's version of events differed greatly from his written statement. He testified that he and Lewis had known each other for about six months at the time of the incident, and that Lewis had been buying drugs from him. On the night in question, Myers had run into Lewis at the trucking lot after leaving Yvette's house. Lewis wanted to send Myers to get some drugs for him, but Myers already had some crack cocaine on his person. Myers and Lewis smoked the crack cocaine in Lewis's truck, Lewis gave Myers five dollars for the drugs, and Myers left. Myers then saw lights from a patrol car, so he ran into the woods to dispose of the rest of the drugs. Myers testified that he saw the police talking to Lewis and came out of hiding to tell them that Lewis had not done anything wrong, but he ran away when he realized he had not gotten rid of all of his drugs. Myers explained that he did not mention any of this in his written statement because Lewis had told the police he was not pressing charges, and because he did not want to get Lewis in trouble.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶ 6. A Madison County grand jury indicted Myers for armed robbery on January4, 2005. The indictment alleged that on October 28, 2004, Myers had taken five dollars from Lewis against his will by exhibiting a deadly weapon. Myers's first trial, held on June 24, 2008, resulted in a hung-jury mistrial. Myers's second trial, held on August 7, 2008, also resulted in a mistrial because two defense witnesses were unavailable for trial. Myers's third trial commenced on September 16, 2008.

¶ 7. On the day before Myers's third trial, Myers's attorney notified the trial court and the prosecution for the first time that Jacques Branch was present in court and available to testify. Branch's testimony was “about the fact that he had seen Edward Myers and Gabriel Lewis together on different occasions and that's basically rebuttal testimony of Mr. Lewis.” Myers's attorney stated that she had been looking for a potential witness to give such testimony to corroborate Myers's defense, but she could not find anyone even up to the date of Myers's second trial. Myers had continued to search for potential witnesses, but he could not get in touch with Branch because he did not have Branch's correct contact information. Myers finally was able to get in touch with Branch on the Friday before trial by contacting Branch's niece. The trial court gave the prosecution an opportunity to interview Branch that evening and then revisited the issue the following day, after the State had rested its case-in-chief. The State never asked for a continuance or mistrial but continued to argue that Branch's testimony should be excluded. The trial court held that Branch would not be allowed to testify, pointing out that two mistrials already had occurred, and that Myers had “had ample time since we were here last time to secure witnesses and had plenty of time to inform the State who those witnesses were.” The trial court did not explicitly rule that Myers had committed a willful discovery violation, but its ruling seems to imply such.

¶ 8. At the conclusion of that trial, the jury found Myers guilty of armed robbery. The trial court sentenced Myers to thirty-nine years' imprisonment, with nine years suspended and five years of post-release supervision. The trial court denied Myers's subsequent motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) or, alternatively, a new trial, and Myers appealed to this Court. On appeal, Myers argues that (1) the trial court improperly excluded a defense witness from testifying, (2) his right to a speedy trial was violated, and (3) the jury's verdict was against the weight of the evidence. Finding the first two issues to be dispositive, we decline to address the weight of the evidence.

DISCUSSION

I. Whether the trial court erred in excluding the testimony of Jacques Branch.

¶ 9. Myers claims that the trial court abused its discretion by excluding the testimony of Jacques Branch. Myers alleges that Branch would have testified that Lewis and Myers knew each other prior to the incident in question, and that he had seen Myers and Lewis together on prior occasions.

¶ 10. Although the trial court did not give a specific reason for its exclusion of Branch's testimony, the State alleges that Branch was excluded because Myers willfully had committed a discovery violation by failing to disclose him. “In reviewing rulings of a trial court regarding matters of evidence, relevancy and discovery violations, the standard of review is abuse of discretion.” Montgomery v. State, 891 So.2d 179, 182 (Miss.2004) (citing Conley v. State, 790 So.2d 773, 782 (Miss.2001)). This Court must determine “(1) whether such a violation occurred and, if so, (2) whether the exclusion of this evidence was an appropriate remedy.” Williams v. State, 54 So.3d 212, 213–14 (Miss.2011).

A. Whether Myers committed a discovery violation by failing to disclose Branch to the prosecution.

¶ 11. A defendant has a constitutional right to call witnesses in his or her favor. SeeU.S. Const. amend. VI; Miss. Const. art. 3, § 26 (1890). However, a defendant also must meet certain discovery requirements regarding the testimony of witnesses. Rule 9.04 of the Uniform Rules of Circuit and County Court Practice governs discovery procedures in criminal cases. According to that rule, the parties must disclose to each other the names and addresses of all witnesses in chief they intend to call at trial. URCCC 9.04(C). This rule applies to witnesses who are actually known by the parties, “or by the exercise of due diligence may become known.” Id. “Both the state and the defendant have a duty to timely supplement discovery.” URCCC 9.04(E). If, after initially complying with discovery procedures, a party discovers new evidence, that evidence must be disclosed promptly to the other party and, if trial already has commenced, to the trial court. Id.

¶ 12. Because matters of discovery violation are within the discretion of the trial court, this Court generally has deferred to the trial court's ruling in cases where there is evidence that the defendant was dilatory in locating a witness or in disclosing the witness's identity. For example, in Williams v. State, 54 So.3d 212, 213 (Miss.2011), the defendant was charged with murder for shooting a man outside a nightclub. The defendant claimed he shot the man in self-defense. Id. In support of his theory of the case, he planned to call as a witness the bouncer at the nightclub, who would testify that the victim was in possession of a gun on the night of the shooting. Id. The trial court did not allow the bouncer to testify about the victim's possession of a gun because that fact had not been disclosed to ...