Wilson v. State, 2005-KA-02136-SCT.
| Decision Date | 25 October 2007 |
| Docket Number | No. 2005-KA-02136-SCT.,2005-KA-02136-SCT. |
| Citation | 967 So.2d 32 |
| Parties | Christine WILSON v. STATE of Mississippi. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Julie Ann Epps, Canton, Cynthia Hewes Speetjens, attorneys for appellant.
Office of the Attorney General, by Deirdre McCrory, attorney for appellee.
EN BANC.
¶ 1. In the Madison County Circuit Court, Christine Wilson was indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced to the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections for the crime of felony shoplifting. Aggrieved by the trial court's entry of the final judgment of conviction and sentence, Wilson appeals to us. Finding no reversible error, we affirm.
¶ 2. Christine Wilson was indicted by a Madison County grand jury for the crime of felony shoplifting at Dillard's in the Northpark Mall in Ridgeland. We reveal here the relevant facts through the testimony of the various witnesses called during Wilson's subsequent jury trial in the Circuit Court of Madison County, Judge Samac S. Richardson, presiding.
¶ 3. On November 4, 2002, Ridgeland police officer Steve Wilson1 was working at his part-time job as a loss prevention officer for Dillard's. As a loss prevention officer, Officer Wilson's primary duty was to look for shoplifters. Dillard's loss prevention officers served as either camera operators or floor operators. On this day, Officer Wilson was serving as a floor operator when he noticed three females and a male gathering merchandise and then carrying the merchandise to one location in the store, which was a typical modus operandi for shoplifters. As Officer Wilson stated, "I'm not talking about a couple of items; I'm talking about quite a few items," which consisted mostly of leather coats and sweat suits. With Officer Wilson's attention understandably being focused on these four individuals, he began to approach them while they were all together. As Officer Wilson approached them, they began lifting their bags of merchandise in an apparent effort to leave the store. Once these four individuals noticed Officer Wilson approaching, "they split up" with two of the females heading toward the parking lot door of Dillard's (and dropping the merchandise bag), and the other female and male heading toward the mall area. Officer Wilson made a courtroom identification of Wilson as the woman who was with the male. Officer Wilson noted that by then, Wilson was not carrying a merchandise bag, but the male was.
¶ 4. Officer Wilson used his cell phone to call the Ridgeland Police Department for backup and then apprehended Wilson and the male in the mall area, also recovering the bag, which contained leather coats and sweat suits. The total value of the recovered merchandise in the two bags was $1,100.50. On redirect examination, Officer Wilson testified as follows:
Q. Let's concentrate on this defendant. What specifically did you see this defendant do during this episode?
A. Hold the bag open so the merchandise could be taken and put in the bag.
Q. Now, when merchandise — a customer pays for merchandise, does the cash register attendant do anything with the sale tags?
A. Oh, yeah. There's — well, we have a system. It's a pop-label system. But in essence, what it amounts to is they have to scan the tag that's on the merchandise. They also have to apply a tag. So it's a two-tag system. None of the merchandise had pop-labels on the tags and none of the merchandise had that second, added label that the yellow label goes on there. Without that, it can't be rung up.
Q. And when this defendant was apprehended by you and the officers, together, did she produce a sales ticket or a receipt where she had paid for anything?
A. She didn't produce a receipt for the merchandise that we recovered. Now I don't know if she had purchased anything else or not.
Q. Were there any receipts found in either of the two bags —
A. No, sir.
Q. — for the fifteen garments?
A. No, sir.
¶ 5. Timothy Harris, the male suspect, pleaded guilty to felony shoplifting and testified for the State. By the time of Wilson's trial, Harris was incarcerated based on his conviction. Harris testified that he did not know Wilson on the day of the incident and did not know her name on the day of the trial; however, he testified that he shoplifted regularly with the other two females. Harris further testified that Wilson knew the other two females and that she "knew what we was doing [sic]" because "she went in the store with us." Harris testified that the plan was to take the clothes, not pay for them, and sell them.
¶ 6. According to Harris, the plan was that he would remain outside the store waiting to be called back into the store to assist with carrying the bags of merchandise out of the store.2 Once the women "called me back in there to tote them out," Harris went into the store and "toted" one of the bags out of the store, at which time he was stopped by security. Harris further testified that he did not hold the bag while the other three women were stuffing it. Harris stated that he did not see what was happening inside the store because he was outside the store, waiting to be called into the store to pick up the bags. After Harris was cross-examined by defense counsel concerning, inter alia, Harris's inability to see what the women were doing inside the store since he was outside the store, Harris was questioned further by the prosecutor during the State's redirect examination:
Q. Mr. Harris, as you say, you were to wait outside until they told you to come get the bags.
A. Right.
Q. Who's [sic] plan was this?
A. Sir?
Q. Who made that plan?
A. It was all our plan.
Q. Who's [sic] plan was that?
A. We all went to steal.
Q. And everybody in that car — who got in that vehicle knew you were about to go steal some clothes?
A. Yes, sir, they did.
MR. CONNER: Object to speculation as to what anyone else knew.
Q. How is it everybody else knew?
THE COURT: Overruled.
A. Sir?
Q. How is it everybody knew?
Q. How was it that everybody knew?
A. Sir?
Q. How was it that everybody knew?
A. Because every — everybody know [sic] that we work together like that, you know. They know — they know exactly what we were going to the store to do. We wasn't [sic] going to watch no movie. We wasn't [sic] going to buy nothing [sic].
¶ 7. Ridgeland police officer Kevin Mathis3 arrested Wilson. Officer Mathis testified that the clothing in the suspects' bags still contained tags and that Wilson produced no receipt showing that she had paid for the clothing.
¶ 8. Christine Wilson took the stand in the defendant's case-in-chief, and she identified one of the two unknown females as her friend, Shameka Davis. Wilson also testified that she did not know the name of the other female. Wilson further testified:
A. Yes, sir. [Davis and I] were going to the mall — or we were about to go to the mall. And she told me that she was going to pick up two of her friends that wanted to go to the mall with us. So she went and picked up Mr. Harris and the other lady. And when she picked them up, we went to the mall. We all went into Dillard's. They went their way; I went my separate way. When I came back, I told — I was talking to my friend. I told her that I was about to checkout, and she told me that — she told me what was going to go on. So I walked — I put my merchandise on the rack. I walked out of the store. I was sitting outside on a bench. I was waiting on her to come out of the store. By that time, must be about twenty minutes later, Mr. Wilson, the officer, he had on regular clothes, he arrested me, told me that — he read me my rights. He arrested me and told me that he had me for shoplifting. And when he arrested me, I didn't have any merchandise. I didn't have nothing on me. All I had was my purse. And he checked — he searched my purse. He got — he took the money out or whatever; he put everything back in after he took it out. And he just — he arrested me, and he took me to the police station and booked me; and, that was about it.
Wilson further emphasized in her testimony that she only found out about the plan to shoplift from Davis once inside the store, and that she took no part in the shoplifting. Additionally, she stated that she did not see anyone else shoplifting.
¶ 9. After the defendant rested her case-in-chief, Officer Wilson testified briefly in the State's rebuttal. At the conclusion of the presentation of the evidence, the trial judge's reading of the jury instructions to the jury, and closing arguments of counsel, the jury deliberated and returned a unanimous verdict finding Wilson guilty of felony shoplifting. The trial judge promptly sentenced Wilson to five years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, with the last year suspended, and five years supervised probation. Wilson also was ordered to pay court costs in the amount of $304.50 and a $1,000 fine. A judgment of conviction and sentence was likewise entered by the trial judge, and the trial judge denied Wilson's subsequently-filed motion for a new trial. Wilson timely appealed the trial court's final judgment and order denying post-trial motions.4
¶ 10. Wilson presents three issues for this Court to decide: (1) whether the trial court erred in granting the State's jury instruction on aiding and abetting; (2) whether the trial court erred in imposing a felony sentence upon Wilson; and (3) whether the trial court erred in admitting a co-conspirator's testimony. We will restate the issues for the sake of clarity in discussion.
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