Wells v. State, 95-DP-01068-SCT

• Decision Date: 12 June 1997
• Docket Number: No. 95-DP-01068-SCT,95-DP-01068-SCT
• Citation: 698 So.2d 497
• Parties: Mack C. WELLS v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 497

698 So.2d 497

Mack C. WELLS v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 95-DP-01068-SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

June 12, 1997.

Robert N. Brooks, Barnett & Brooks, Carthage, for appellant.

Michael C. Moore, Attorney General, Leslie S. Lee, Marvin L. White, Jr., Special Asst. Attys. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

En Banc.

MILLS, Justice, for the Court:

Mack C. Wells was indicted in the Circuit Court of Scott County for capital murder committed while engaged in the commission of the crime of felonious abuse and/or battery of a child. The case was transferred upon motion to the Circuit Court of Leake County, where on September 27, 1995, a jury found Wells guilty as charged. After the sentencing phase of the trial, the jury recommended that Wells be sentenced to death. The trial court denied Wells' post-trial motions and entered judgment ordering that Wells be put to death by lethal injection. On appeal before this Court, Wells assigns as error the following issues.

I. WHETHER THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN EXCUSING PROSPECTIVE JURORS FOR CAUSE DUE TO THEIR OPPOSITION TO THE DEATH PENALTY.

II. WHETHER THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN OVERRULING WELLS' OBJECTIONS TO MISCONDUCT ON THE PART OF COUNSEL FOR THE PROSECUTION.

III. WHETHER THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN OVERRULING WELLS' MOTION FOR MISTRIAL FOLLOWING THE ADMISSION INTO EVIDENCE OF THE KNIFE AS STATE'S EXHIBIT NO. 9 AND WELLS' STATEMENT CONCERNING SAME.

IV. WHETHER THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN OVERRULING WELLS' MOTION FOR MISTRIAL FOLLOWING IMPROPER COMMENT ON THE EVIDENCE BY THE TRIAL JUDGE.

V. WHETHER THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN OVERRULING WELLS' OBJECTION TO THE ADMISSION INTO EVIDENCE OF STATE'S EXHIBIT

NO. 17 DURING THE SENTENCING PHASE OF THE TRIAL.

VI. WHETHER THE STATE'S CLOSING ARGUMENT DURING THE SENTENCING PHASE WAS IMPROPER AND WARRANTS A REVERSAL OF THE SENTENCE.

VII. WHETHER, AT THE TIME OF THE CRIME, WELLS WAS UNDER EXTREME MENTAL OR EMOTIONAL DISTURBANCE AND HIS CAPACITY TO CONFORM HIS CONDUCT TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE LAW WAS SUBSTANTIALLY IMPAIRED.

FACTS

During the summer of 1994, Mack C. Wells ("Wells") and Jimmy Lee Warnsley ("Warnsley") were fellow inmates, on unrelated charges, at the Forest City Jail in Scott County. While there, Wells told Warnsley that Wells was having problems with Wells' thirteen-year-old stepson, Gary Wells ("Gary"), whom Wells claimed to have overheard talking with some other boys about killing Wells. Wells told Warnsley that when Wells got out of jail, he was going to kill the boy. Wells soon was released from jail, but was incarcerated again sometime later while Warnsley was still incarcerated. Back in jail, Wells told Warnsley that while Wells had been out of jail, he had killed Gary and buried him in the backyard. According to Warnsley, Wells told him that Wells had killed Gary by stabbing him several times while Gary lay on the couch, and that when Gary asked Wells why he was doing it, Wells told him it was because Wells did not like him. Warnsley related this information to officers of the Forest Police Department.

Using this information, the officers obtained a warrant to search the premises of the Forest home of Ada Wells, Mack Wells' ex-wife and Gary's mother. During their search on October 1, 1994, the officers discovered Gary's corpse buried in a shallow grave in the backyard. The body had been dead for some time, and was wrapped in a blanket and what appeared to be a portion of a shower curtain. An autopsy later attributed Gary's death to multiple stab wounds in the neck, chest, back and hand. A search of the house revealed several knives atop the refrigerator in the kitchen and a torn shower curtain in the bathroom which later proved to match the material found wrapped around the body. The police arrested Wells the same day on the charge of murder.

During Wells' interrogation, before which he was advised of and signed a waiver of his Miranda rights, he made a statement confessing to the killing of his stepson. As Wells made the statement, Investigator Jimmie Nichols wrote it down, after which he read it back to Wells. Wells then read and signed the statement. Wells' statement, admitted into evidence at trial, reads as follows:

Approx. a month ago, one day during the week on a school day I walked over to Ada's house at about 7:30 in the morning. I saw Cornelius and June and Max C. Wells Jr. on the street waiting on the bus and I asked them who was at home. I saw a blue mark on Max Jr.'s face and I asked him who did it and he said Angel. Max Jr. told me that "Man" [Gary Wells] was at the house. I went straight on over to the house. I went to the back of the house. When I got to the house I opened the door. "Man" was sitting up watching T.V. I told "Man" what was going to happen to him and his mama if they started hanging around with a bad crowd. I went to the house just to beat him up a little bit. I didn't go to kill him. "Man" pulled a knife out from under a pillow. I told him that I know that they intended on taking my life away so I don't have any choice but to take yall's to [sic]. Me and "Man" got to fighting. I took the knife and started jugging him, stabbing him. It was a long blue chicken knife. I stabbed him once in the neck and several times in the stomach. He said don't do this. I told him that I didn't have no other choice. It took Man 20 or 30 minutes to die. He was telling me that "You know your [sic] wrong." When he died I drug him into the kitchen. I started cleaning up the blood. He was still talking. I cut down the shower curtain and wrapped it around him. I also tore a blanket and put [it] over him. I took my clothes off and washed them because they The officers also showed Wells the group of knives found in Ada Wells' house. Wells identified the knife he used to kill Gary, which knife was admitted at trial as State's Exhibit No. 9.

were covered in blood. I took the knife and cleaned it off and put it in the rack. I then took him outside and got a shovel and dug a hole next to the back of the house and buried him. Once I took a bath and cleaned all of the mess up I took a bath and then I left.

DISCUSSION OF LAW

I. WHETHER THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN EXCUSING PROSPECTIVE JURORS FOR CAUSE DUE TO THEIR OPPOSITION TO THE DEATH PENALTY.

Wells argues that the trial court's excusing of three prospective jurors for cause due to their opposition to the death penalty was improper because the jurors did not make it "unmistakably clear" that they would automatically vote against the death penalty, which Wells claims is required under Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968). However, Witherspoon does not stand for this proposition, but rather provides that "a sentence of death cannot be carried out if the jury that imposed or recommended it was chosen by excluding veniremen simply because they voiced general objections to the death penalty or expressed conscientious or religious scruples against its infliction." 391 U.S. at 522, 88 S.Ct. at 1777. In fact, the Supreme Court in Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U.S. 412, 424, 105 S.Ct. 844, 852, 83 L.Ed.2d 841 (1985) specifically held that the Witherspoon standard "does not require that a juror's bias be proved with 'unmistakable clarity.' " See also Taylor v. State, 672 So.2d 1246, 1264 (Miss (stating same), cert denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 486, 136 L.Ed.2d 379 (1996).

The proper standard set forth by the Supreme Court, and followed by this Court, is whether the juror's views on capital punishment would "prevent or substantially impair the performance of his duties as a juror in accordance with his instructions and his oath." Wainwright, 469 U.S. at 424, 105 S.Ct. at 852; Taylor, 672 So.2d at 1264; Williamson v. State, 512 So.2d 868, 880-81 (Miss.1987). The juror need not expressly state that he absolutely refuses to consider the death penalty, but rather an equivalent response made in any reasonable manner indicating the juror's firm position will suffice. Taylor, 672 So.2d at 1264; Willie v. State, 585 So.2d 660, 673 (Miss.1991).

Because the trial judge, due to his presence during the voir dire process, is in a better position to evaluate the prospective juror's responses, the decision of whether or not to excuse the juror is left to the trial judge's discretion. Taylor, 672 So.2d at 1264; Stringer v. State, 500 So.2d 928, 943 (Miss.1986). The judicial determination of whether a juror is fair and impartial will not be set aside unless such determination is clearly wrong. Taylor, 672 So.2d at 1264; Carr v. State, 555 So.2d 59, 60 (Miss.1989). When reviewing the excusing of jurors due to their opposition to the death penalty, we look not only to the ruling, but also to the setting and time devoted to the questions, and the opportunity of sequestered voir dire. Taylor, 672 So.2d at 1265.

In the case sub judice, Wells challenges the trial court's excusing of prospective jurors Hazel Harvey, Henrine Smith and Ager Beamon. In response to the trial judge's inquiry as to whether any prospective jurors had religious or conscientious scruples against infliction of the death penalty, these three were the only veniremen who raised their hands, whereupon the judge and all attorneys retired to chambers to question them individually. In chambers, the examinations went as follows:

EXAMINATION OF JUROR HAZEL HARVEY BY THE COURT:

* * * * * *

[BY THE COURT:] Mrs. Harvey, you indicated in the Courtroom that you have conscientious scruples against the infliction of the death penalty; is that true?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Can you nevertheless and regardless of your conscientious scruples against the A. Not the death penalty. I can sentence him to life, but I don't believe in taking a life.

                infliction of the death penalty, follow the testimony and the evidence in this case and the instructions I will give you on the law, and return a verdict inflicting the death penalty, if you are convinced, you being the judge of the weight and worth of

...