Triplett v. State
| Decision Date | 30 November 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 91-KA-00782-SCT,91-KA-00782-SCT |
| Citation | 666 So.2d 1356 |
| Parties | Michael Lee TRIPLETT v. STATE of Mississippi. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
The original opinions in this case are withdrawn and these opinions are substituted therefor.
Michael Lee Triplett has appealed his conviction of manslaughter in the circuit court of Winston County and sentence to twenty years' imprisonment. His sole assignment of error is that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel guaranteed him by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. We agree and reverse.
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence." U.S. Const. amend. VI. By the Fourteenth Amendment this right is made obligatory upon the States. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963). This right means "the right to the effective assistance of counsel." McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 771 n. 14, 90 S.Ct. 1441, 1449 n. 14, 25 L.Ed.2d 763 (1970).
The Sixth Amendment recognizes the right to the assistance of counsel because it envisions counsel's playing a role that is critical to the ability of the adversarial system to produce just results. An accused is entitled to be assisted by an attorney, whether retained or appointed, who plays the role necessary to ensure that the trial is fair.
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 685, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2063, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984) (emphasis added).
Article 3, § 26 of our Constitution provides: "In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have a right to be heard by himself or counsel, or both...." We hold today that the Mississippi Constitution's right to counsel embraces all rights guaranteed to a criminally accused defendant by the Sixth Amendment.
As Strickland and our cases following this United States Supreme Court decision illustrate, the difficulty comes in applying this right to the multiple variety of instances in which its infringement is claimed.
William Earl Eiland, doing business either as "Eiland's Cafe" or "Willie Earl's," in 1988 operated an unpretentious restaurant in the High Point Community in the extreme northern part of Winston County only a short distance from the Choctaw County line. Simply looking at the ramshackle building in this rural area one would wonder at its apparent popularity as a hang-out for young people.
On Thursday night, September 1, 1988, Triplett, nineteen years of age and a senior in the Ackerman high school, was at a football game in Weir, Choctaw County, and while there had some difficulty with a young man, later identified as Alfonso (Bobo) Evans. According to Triplett, Evans pulled a knife on him.
Late Friday night, around 10:30 and after a football game in Ackerman, Triplett went with his friends Kevin Miller, Darrell Estes, Howard Lewis, and Karry Bray to Willie Earl's. That night Wayne Arterberry, a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old sophomore in the Weir high school and on the football team, also went to Willie Earl's in the company of Michael Herbert, Melvin Dotson, and Alfonzo and Kevin Evans. Arterberry weighed approximately 150 pounds and was approximately 5 feet 11 inches tall.
Another group who went to Willie Earl's that night was made up of Willie Miller, Thomas Coffee, Bobby Joe Woodard, an unidentified female, and Willie McCain, all in McCain's car.
Inside Triplett saw Evans and accosted him about pulling the knife on him. An argument started and a group of the young people went outside where it continued.
According to Coffee, a state witness, Triplett at some point cursed and grabbed Arterberry, who had been trying to get away from Triplett, and then shot him.
There is agreement between the state and defense witnesses that after the group got outside Arterberry also had something to say in the argument between Evans and Triplett.
Triplett's version was as follows: Arterberry had a knife that night outside the cafe, and Triplett was afraid of Evans and the group he was with. He had told them he wanted no trouble. While outside Dwight Gibson gave him a pistol. Triplett had never before fired a pistol. To scare the group off, Triplett shot in the air.
After he had fired the first shot, Karry Bray came up behind Triplett, "jumped on my back and grabbed my arm and I wrestled with him and it went off." R.II, 202.
Bray testified he only heard the first shot, and did not know the circumstances under which it was fired. While running, attempting to flee he came up behind Triplett and saw him with the pistol. According to Bray, when he saw the pistol, he grabbed Triplett's right arm and was tussling with him when it went off, the bullet striking Wayne Arterberry in the chest.
The bullet lodged in a thoracic vertebra, and Arterberry died a few hours later from excessive bleeding in the Winston County Hospital.
Triplett got in Joe Baber's car, gave Baber the pistol, and was taken home by Baber. Larry Murphy left with them.
In a statement given to Winston County Sheriff Billy Rosamond when he was investigating the killing, Bray neglected to mention that he had grabbed Triplett, causing the weapon to fire.
Triplett also significantly failed to mention, in a statement given to the sheriff the next day which was typed, that it was Bray's wrestling with him that caused the weapon to fire. While most of Triplett's typed statement was consistent with his trial testimony, as to the shooting it read as follows:
I was walking off and Wayne Arterberry came behind me and started talking some junk, and I said please man don't mess with me. I don't want any trouble. I started walking off again and he kept running his mouth. I kept walking and I walked up to Dwight Gibson and he took a pistol from his back pocket and handed it to me. I held the gun in my right hand and put my hand under my shirt and I seen Wayne Arterberry with a knife in his right hand. I went berserk and fired the gun at Wayne Arterberry twice. I missed him the first time & the second shot hit him. I turned around and walked off and told Joy Wayne Baber to carry me home. I went home and the Choctaw County Deputy Sheriff came and picked me up.
Triplett's family employed Richard Burdine, an attorney from Columbus, to defend him. The Winston County grand jury indicted Triplett for murder October 12, and he went to trial November 3, 1988.
Counsel's legal representation of Triplett which raises questions consists of the following:
(1) No request for pre-trial discovery was made. At trial counsel's lack of familiarity with Triplett's statement to the sheriff was demonstrated when he was questioning Triplett, who had just testified the gun was fired twice.
Q. Twice. And is it in your statement--I think it may be in your statement that it was fired three times. Is that right?
A. No, it's not in my statement. It was fired twice.
Q. Twice.
Counsel was also apparently unaware that Bray had given a statement to the sheriff which omitted any mention of the reason the second shot was fired.
(2) The record reveals no request by the defense for subpoenas. At least 17 or 18 individuals were named during the course of the trial who were at the scene. The killing occurred in a county where neither Triplett nor Arterberry resided, and defense counsel lived some forty miles away. Counsel's lack of familiarity with the trial witnesses was indicated by his inability to get their names right when they were testifying. Three witnesses at the scene testified for the state, namely: Willie Miller, Baber and Coffee. 1 Four testified for the defense, namely: Deborah Vaughn, Howard Lewis, Jr., Bray and Triplett.
(3) There was no attempt to seek a continuance in order to better prepare for trial.
(4) The defense did not request a special venire, and there were no challenges for cause by the defense or State. 2
One juror, Goss, remained, whose nephew two years previously had been shot and paralyzed in the manner Arterberry was shot. Goss also lived in the High Point community and knew Eiland.
(5) The 1990 census shows Winston County is 41% black. No Batson question was raised by defense counsel.
(6) Counsel made no attempt to suppress or challenge the voluntariness of Triplett's statement to the sheriff presented as part of the state's case in chief. Indeed, he complimented the sheriff, telling him he knew him and that he had complied with the law.
(7) Counsel made no attempt to explain, deflect or minimize during his direct examination of Bray the significant failure by him to tell the sheriff during his investigation that the reason the second shot was fired was Bray wrestling with Triplett. He left it all to be brought out in a telling cross-examination by the state, forming the major part of the state's closing argument. This suggests counsel was unaware of Bray's statement prior to trial, and may not have known of Bray's pre-trial statement until it was brought out on cross-examination. Counsel at the very least in his direct examination of Bray should have given him the opportunity to tell why the statement to the sheriff did not disclose the reason for the second shot. This was a glaring omission and the worst possible time to have it disclosed to the jury was during cross-examination.
(8) The sheriff during his investigation found a knife at the scene of the shooting. Counsel attempted to have the knife introduced into evidence during his cross-examination of the sheriff, but the circuit judge ruled it could not be introduced then. The circuit judge asked counsel if the defendant...
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