Wooten v. State
| Decision Date | 27 September 2022 |
| Docket Number | 2021-KA-00737-COA |
| Parties | SHARINA LEE WOOTEN APPELLANT v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI APPELLEE |
| Court | Mississippi Court of Appeals |
DATE OF JUDGMENT: 06/18/2021
LINCOLN COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT HON. MICHAEL M. TAYLOR TRIAL JUDGE
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT: OFFICE OF STATE PUBLIC DEFENDER BY W. DANIEL HINCHCLIFF
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE: OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL BY: CASEY BONNER FARMER
DISTRICT ATTORNEY: DEE BATES
BEFORE BARNES, C.J., GREENLEE AND LAWRENCE, JJ.
¶1. A Lincoln County Circuit Court jury found Sharina Wooten guilty of aggravated domestic violence. The trial court sentenced her to twenty years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, with fifteen years to serve and five years suspended, and five years of post-release supervision. On appeal, Wooten argues that the trial court abused its discretion by allowing in evidence of other prior bad acts and that her fundamental right to present a defense was denied in three instances involving trial witnesses. Finding no error, we affirm Wooten's conviction and sentence.
¶2. On January 3, 2020, Sharina Wooten shot her boyfriend, Ernest Jordan, after an altercation at her trailer home in Bogue Chitto, Mississippi. Wooten and Jordan met in November 2019 and began living together a week later. At the time, Jordan had neither a vehicle nor a working cell phone.
¶3. Wooten and Jordan's relationship involved numerous verbal and physical altercations before the night of the shooting including an incident where Wooten had slapped him when they were arguing about another woman. During this argument, Wooten tried to pull a gun from her purse, but Jordan got the purse and gun away from her. Both Wooten and Jordan accused the other of physical abuse and controlling behavior.
¶4. On the night of January 3, Wooten and Jordan were in Wooten's trailer home with her two teenage nieces and daughter. Wooten was talking with her nieces, and Jordan was playing games on an old cell phone in another room. Jordan testified that Wooten was discussing his and Wooten's sexual relationship with her nieces and that this upset him. Wooten testified that she and her nieces were not discussing Jordan but instead telling jokes. After the nieces left, Wooten and Jordan began arguing. Wooten claimed that the altercation became physical. Jordan, however, testified that the altercation was only verbal.
¶5. According to Jordan, he decided to leave the trailer and asked Wooten if he could use her phone to call for a ride. Wooten handed over the phone, and he stepped outside to call somebody. Wooten watched him from the doorway before walking away and then reappearing with a gun. Wooten told Jordan to "back up" and then began shooting at him.
Wooten shot once, then paused, and fired three more times, all missing Jordan. He turned to run away from Wooten, and she shot a fifth bullet that hit him in the back. Jordan told Wooten that she shot him and ran toward Highway 51.
¶6. Jordan used Wooten's phone to call 911, and a recording of the call was entered into evidence. Jordan, in shock and bleeding profusely, did not speak to the dispatcher, but he could be heard running and calling for help. When the call ended, Wooten pulled up to Jordan in her car on Highway 51 and asked for her phone back. Jordan recounted that Wooten was still pointing the gun at him when he approached her car. Wooten's daughter was in the back seat. Jordan gave the phone to Wooten and asked for a ride to the hospital, but Wooten drove away. Jordan then ran to the road for help.
¶7. Althea Upkins was traveling on Highway 51 when she encountered a blood-covered man in the road looking for help. Jordan jumped toward Upkins's car as she passed by him. Upkins turned around and called 911, heading back to assist Jordan. Upkins testified that Jordan locked his arms around her car's side-view mirror and would not let go, looking "scared for his life." Upkins waited with Jordan until law enforcement arrived at the scene. Jordan told Upkins his girlfriend had shot him.
¶8. Troy Moak also encountered Jordan on the side of Highway 51. Moak continued past Jordan and dropped off his children before returning to assist Jordan, who was by then on the ground in the road beside Upkins's car. Moak testified that Jordan looked scared and kept saying, "[H]elp me, help me, I'm dying and cold." Jordan told Moak that his girlfriend shot him. As Upkins and Moak applied pressure to Jordan's wounds while waiting on the ambulance, Wooten drove through the scene at least once before stopping.
¶9. After retrieving her phone from Jordan, Wooten drove to her mother's house nearby, where she dropped off her daughter. Wooten's mother testified that Wooten was crying and hysterical. Wooten then returned to the scene and asked Upkins what had happened and whether Upkins had run over Jordan. Upkins and Moak both reported seeing blood on the driver's side door of Wooten's car. Moak testified that Jordan started "freaking out" when Wooten approached Jordan. Wooten tried to lift Jordan off the ground but could not. Wooten then kneeled down, and Upkins heard Wooten whisper to Jordan not to tell the police that she was the one who shot him. Upkins testified that Wooten told her Jordan had likely been hit by a stray bullet as there were frequent shootings in the area. Upkins lived nearby and testified she had never heard of any shooting.
¶10. An officer at the scene requested that Wooten move her car to make way for the ambulance. Wooten then drove to her home nearby, changed her shirt, and cleaned Jordan's blood from her car and herself before returning to the scene. At trial, Wooten denied that these actions were an attempt to hide her role in the shooting. Shortly after she returned to the scene, law enforcement realized that Wooten was the assailant Jordan had identified. An officer then instructed Wooten to stay at the scene.
¶11. Andrew Montgomery, a Lincoln County Sheriff's Department investigator, spoke with Wooten at the scene. Montgomery advised Wooten of her Miranda[1] rights after seeing blood on her car door. Wooten informed him Jordan was her boyfriend, and they had gotten into an altercation earlier that night. Wooten claimed the altercation was only verbal and not physical. Wooten stated Jordan had walked away from her house, and she was unsure of how he had been shot. She again speculated that Jordan may have been hit by a stray bullet. Montgomery testified that Wooten was "very defensive" during questioning at the scene. Another officer who was dispatched to the scene was wearing a body camera, and its video, which was entered into evidence, corroborated that Wooten was defensive and uncooperative with law enforcement. Wooten later informed Montgomery that she did fire the gun during the altercation, but they were warning shots fired toward the road. When Montgomery spoke with Jordan, he stated Wooten first fired when he was facing her. Then, he turned and ran away from her and was struck in the back.
¶12. Wooten was transported to the sheriff's department for further questioning by Montgomery, who was aware that Jordan had identified Wooten as the one who had shot him. Montgomery also had seen the blood on Wooten's car door. During her interview, Wooten told Montgomery that Jordan had threatened her with a knife.
¶13. Law enforcement checked inside Wooten's trailer home for other victims. Montgomery testified that based on the officers' walk-through, nothing indicated that a shooting had taken place inside the home, but there were indications of an altercation.
Montgomery testified that he saw a hole in Wooten's wall and an overturned clothes rack. Officers searched Wooten's vehicle and discovered a .380-caliber semi-automatic handgun under the passenger's seat. The casings on the scene matched the handgun's caliber.
¶14. Montgomery took photographs of Wooten's face that were entered into evidence to show there were no visible injuries on her. Wooten, however, testified these photographs were mug shots and did not document her lack of bruising. Wooten did not inform Montgomery of any injuries on the night of the shooting.
¶15. Wooten's ex-husband, John, testified for the State over a continuing objection by the defense, which had filed a motion in limine to exclude Wooten's prior bad acts under Mississippi Rule of Evidence 404(b). During trial, the parties had an in-chambers hearing on the motion. Defense counsel argued against the State's eliciting testimony from John about two incidents: a stabbing and a threat of assault during their marriage, both occurring about thirteen years previously. The State argued that this evidence was admissible because it would contradict Wooten's anticipated testimony that the shooting was an accident-she previously had acted violently toward a prior domestic partner. The defense countered that the testimony would be more prejudicial than probative. The trial court found the testimony probative on the issue of lack of mistake, accident, or self-defense;[2] further, the court found the testimony's probative value substantially outweighed any prejudicial effect.[3] The trial court informed the defense that it would be entitled to a limiting instruction on the evidence and warned the State that there should be no suggestion that the testimony was being offered for any other uses than those permitted under Rule 404(b)(2).[4]
¶16. John proceeded to testify that he and Wooten married in 2006 and divorced in October 2020. They were separated for "a long time." He testified that during the marriage, there were multiple physical domestic altercations between him and Wooten: in one altercation about a year into the marriage Wooten stabbed him; another...
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