Willie v. State
| Decision Date | 08 December 2016 |
| Docket Number | NO. 2014–KA–01041–SCT,2014–KA–01041–SCT |
| Citation | 204 So.3d 1268 |
| Parties | James Douglas Willie a/k/a James D. Willie a/k/a James Willie v. State of Mississippi |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT: OFFICE OF THE STATE PUBLIC DEFENDER BY: JUSTIN TAYLOR COOK, GEORGE T. HOLMES
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE: OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL BY: ALICIA MARIE AINSWORTH
EN BANC
COLEMAN, JUSTICE, FOR THE COURT:
¶ 1. A Panola County jury convicted James Douglas Willie of deliberate design murder. He now appeals the conviction and raises the following issues: (1) that the trial court erred in allowing the State's ballistic expert to give definitive testimony matching bullets from the crime scene to a gun linked to Willie; (2) that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to object to the ballistics testimony; (3) that the jury returned a guilty verdict against the overwhelming weight of the evidence; and (4) that the trial court improperly answered a question submitted by the jury. We hold that the judge erred in answering a question posed by the jury during deliberations and reverse Willie's conviction and remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings.
¶ 2. Nebraska resident Tom Schlender, age seventy-four, was killed while traveling on U.S. Interstate 55 (I–55) through Panola County, Mississippi, to pick up his grandson at a Bible college in Pensacola, Florida. Trooper Robert Anderson of the Mississippi Highway Patrol discovered Schlender's body. Anderson testified that he received a call at 1:46 a.m. on May 8, 2012, to work a one-vehicle accident on I–55 near the Pope–Courtland exit. He arrived at 2:07 a.m. and observed a red Ford pickup truck in the southbound lane with its driver's side against the guardrail in the median. The truck's doors were closed. Anderson opened the passenger's-side door to talk to the driver, who was bloodied and had no pulse. Anderson noticed that the truck's engine was running and the transmission was in drive.
¶ 3. Kit Wingert, a crime scene analyst with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, processed the crime scene. Wingert testified that the driver/victim had apparent gunshot wounds
to his right hand, front left shoulder, back left shoulder, and the right side of his body. He testified that the truck's front passenger's-side and driver's-side windows were broken out and there was a projectile defect on the passenger's-side mirror. Five bullet holes were in the post between the driver's-side door and the back door; two of the bullets had penetrated into the cab. Four nine-millimeter shell casings were found on I–55 several hundred feet north of the truck's resting place. Wingert collected a projectile and projectile fragments from several places inside the truck. He testified that the projectiles had come from the driver's side of the truck. The medical examiner testified that he had identified five gunshot wounds
to Schlender, including one close-range wound to the left shoulder. The medical examiner removed a bullet from Schlender's right shoulder and a loose bullet from the body bag in which he received Schlender's body.
¶ 4. Albert Perkins of the Panola County Sheriff's Department testified that Willie's mother lived about two and a half miles from the Pope–Courtland exit. Candace Rattler testified that she had been in a burgundy Chevrolet automobile with Willie in Tunica County, Mississippi, on May 15, 2012. Rattler testified that Willie had a gun with him and fired it twice before putting it in the glove compartment. Rattler could not identify Willie in the courtroom and testified that, in May 2012, Willie was heavyset and had braids. The State called Bernadette Logan, a detective with the Tunica County Sheriff's Department. Logan testified that, in May 2012, Willie had been heavyset with braids, but since that time he had lost a substantial amount of weight and had changed his hairstyle.
¶ 5. Logan testified that, after talking with Rattler, she had recovered two nine-millimeter shell casings from Johnson's Bottom Road in Tunica County. Another detective testified that he had found a burgundy Chevrolet vehicle at Willie's apartment with a black, nine-millimeter, Ruger pistol in the glove compartment. The gun was unloaded, but a loaded clip was found over the driver's-side sun visor.
¶ 6. Cedric Davis of the Tunica County Sheriff's Department testified that he had interviewed Willie on May 15, 2012. Davis testified that, at that time, Willie was heavier and wore two dreadlocks. Davis said that Willie had told him that the gun had been in his possession for approximately two weeks and that he had purchased it for his protection.
¶ 7. Brian McIntire, a forensic analyst with the Mississippi Crime Laboratory, was accepted as an expert in forensic firearm identification. McIntire testified that he had examined the gun, the four shell casings found on I–55, the bullet and fragments found in the truck's cab, the two shell casings from Tunica County, and the bullets submitted by the medical examiner. McIntire further testified that, in his expert opinion, the four shell casings found on I–55 were fired in the gun, two projectiles from the truck's cab were fired in the gun, the two bullets collected by the medical examiner were fired in the gun and the two shell casings from Tunica County were fired in the gun. He testified that some of the projectile fragments collected from the truck's cab had the same class characteristics as the gun, but he was unable to identify them positively as having been fired in the gun.
¶ 8. McIntire also testified about the methodology he used to reach his conclusions. He explained that, first, he test-fired the gun in the laboratory to produce test-fired bullets. He then examined the "test fires" to become familiar with their class characteristics and individual characteristics. McIntire testified that "class characteristics" are the characteristics common to all firearms with the same model number and that the Ruger's class characteristics were nine-millimeter caliber, six lands and grooves, and a right-hand twist. McIntire testified that individual marks or striations are left on the bullet and cartridge case when a gun is fired, and that the "individual characteristics" are unique to a specific firearm. By using a comparison microscope to compare the individual characteristics of the test fires to the individual characteristics of the bullets associated with the crime, he said he was able to determine whether a particular projectile or shell casing was fired from a particular weapon. His results were reviewed by another firearms identification expert at the Mississippi Crime Laboratory.
¶ 9. Willie did not challenge McIntire's qualifications or his conclusions. He presented no opposing expert testimony. On cross-examination, defense counsel asked whether McIntire had a margin of error for his results. McIntire responded that he had no margin of error but admitted that he is not infallible.
¶ 10. Willie testified and denied that he had killed Schlender. He testified that he had purchased the gun "off the streets" in Memphis, Tennessee, for his protection. He admitted that he had told investigating authorities that he had purchased it approximately two weeks before he was questioned, but he stated that the word "approximately" meant that he could have had it for days, weeks, or months. On cross examination, Willie testified that he had bought the gun on May 13, 2012, after the murder. Indeed, his defense at trial had nothing to do with challenging the State's assertion that the gun in question was the murder weapon. Instead, he testified that he did not possess the gun until after the crime, and that the real murderer must have sold the gun after committing the murder.
¶ 11. Willie argues that the trial court erred in permitting McIntire to testify conclusively that the shell casings and bullets came from Willie's gun. Willie argues that McIntire should have been allowed to testify only that the bullets and shell casings were consistent with having been fired from the pistol. He further contends that McIntire's testimony should have been so limited because a consensus exists within the scientific and legal communities that bullets and shell casings cannot be matched to a specific firearm with absolute certainty.
¶ 12. Mississippi Rule of Evidence 702, which governs the admissibility of expert testimony, provides:
[i]f scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise, if (1) the testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data, (2) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods, and (3) the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case.
M.R.E. 702. Under Rule 702, expert testimony must be both relevant and reliable. Corrothers v. State , 148 So.3d 278, 294 (Miss. 2014) ; see Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms. , 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993). Under the relevance prong, the evidence must "assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue." Id. (quoting Daubert , 509 U.S. at 591, 113 S.Ct. 2786 ). Testimony is reliable when it is ‘based upon sufficient facts or data,’ is ‘the product of reliable principles and methods,’ and when ‘the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case.’ " Corrothers , 148 So.3d at 294 (quoting M.R.E. 702). The court may consider the nonexaustive factors to assess reliability: "whether the expert's theory can be or has been tested;...
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