Phillips v. State, CR–14–499
Decision Date | 26 August 2015 |
Docket Number | No. CR–14–499,CR–14–499 |
Citation | 467 S.W.3d 742,2015 Ark. App. 419 |
Parties | Lester Phillips, Appellant v. State of Arkansas, Appellee. |
Court | Arkansas Court of Appeals |
Potts Law Office, by: Gary W. Potts, Monticello, for appellant.
Dustin McDaniel, Att'y Gen., by: Valerie Glover Fortner, Ass't Att'y Gen., for appellee.
On October 30, 2013, a Jefferson County jury convicted Lester Phillips of murder in the second degree, and he was sentenced as a habitual offender to forty years in the Arkansas Department of Correction. Phillips's sole argument on appeal is that the circuit court abused its discretion when it denied his timely motion for mistrial.1 For the following reasons, we affirm.
Evidence presented at trial reflected that on June 12, 2012, Mark Sykes and Lester Phillips went to LeRoy Collins's home to purchase drugs. Phillips stayed at Collins's home while Collins and Sykes went to buy drugs. While attempting to purchase the drugs, Collins and Sykes were robbed. When Collins tried to explain to Phillips what happened with the botched drug deal, Phillips fatally shot him in the head execution style.
Appellant moved for a directed verdict arguing that the State had not introduced sufficient evidence to establish premeditated purpose in causing Collins's death. The court found that premeditation did exist, stating, The court then denied the motion for directed verdict.
After Phillips testified and corroborated the events that took place the day in question —except for his testimony that someone else shot Collins—he moved for a directed verdict a second time. Again, the court denied the motion. The jury then retired to deliberate.
During the course of the jury deliberations in the guilt phase, the jury sent several written notes to the court. On October 29, 2013, the jury sent two notes, and the court brought the jurors into the courtroom to respond. The transcript, in part, reads as follows:
The jury continued deliberations, and at 5:44 p.m. on October 29, 2013, the court sent the jury home for the night and ordered them to return the next morning at 9:00 a.m. to deliberate further. Nothing in the record indicates that either side objected to the Allen instruction or to dismissing the jury on the evening of October 29.
On October 30, the jury returned, and the court reread all of the jury instructions—including the Allen instruction. Neither party objected to the rereading of the instructions. The jury began to deliberate at 9:52 a.m., had lunch from 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m., and returned a verdict of guilty of second-degree murder around 2:10 p.m. At 2:25 p.m., appellant's counsel requested that the jury be excused so that he could make a record, outside of its presence, concerning other notes the jury had sent that morning. The jury was excused.
Appellant's counsel requested the court to specify the sequence of the notes that came in after the jury had started deliberations around 10:00 a.m. on October 30. The jury sent a total of five notes; it is uncontested that the trial court did not respond to any of them. Three notes were sent before the lunch break. The first note was sent around 10:32 a.m. or 10:34 a.m., and read The second note which was written and signed by one of the jurors read: The third note, sent before the lunch break, was unsigned and read “Judge Jones, [...] is one of the jurors that has voted not guilty and she states that, ‘she is not going to change her mind.’ ”
During the lunch break, a fourth note came back that read, “The jurors are requesting that you come in the room with us, that we can...
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Honey v. State
...resorted to only when there has been an error so prejudicial that justice cannot be served by continuing the trial. Phillips v. State , 2015 Ark. App. 419, 467 S.W.3d 742. As a result, we leave the decision whether to grant a new trial to the sound discretion of the trial court and will not......
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...ADC. Doc. 7-2. Phillips appealed to the Arkansas Court of Appeals, which affirmed his conviction on August 26, 2015. Phillips v. State, 2015 Ark. App. 419, 467 S.W.3d 742. He then had eighteen days, until September 13, 2015, to file a petition for review with the Arkansas Supreme Court. Ark......