Alexander v. State

759 So. 2d 411, 2000 WL 490903
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedApril 27, 2000
Docket98-KA-00577-SCT
StatusPublished
Cited by45 cases

This text of 759 So. 2d 411 (Alexander v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Alexander v. State, 759 So. 2d 411, 2000 WL 490903 (Mich. 2000).

Opinion

759 So.2d 411 (2000)

Norris Crawford ALEXANDER
v.
STATE of Mississippi.

No. 98-KA-00577-SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

April 27, 2000.

*413 Joe VanDyke, Sardis, William F. Travis, Southaven, Attorneys for Appellant.

Office of the Attorney General by Charles W. Maris, Jr., Attorney for Appellee.

BEFORE PITTMAN AND BANKS, P.JJ., AND MILLS, J.

MILLS, Justice, for the Court:

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

¶ 1. Catherine Diane Blevin was stabbed in her Panola County, Mississippi, home on July 23, 1993 and died two days later. Her son-in-law, Norris Crawford Alexander, was convicted of capital murder as an habitual offender in the Circuit Court of the Second Judicial District of Panola County. Alexander was sentenced to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole. Aggrieved by the verdict, Alexander appeals. We consider the following issues:

*414 ISSUES
I. WHETHER THE DEFENDANT WAS DENIED A FUNDAMENTALLY FAIR TRIAL WHERE THE STATE WAS ALLOWED TO ELICIT INADMISSIBLE HEARSAY TESTIMONY WHICH BOLSTERED TESTIMONY REGARDING AN ADMISSION BY THE DEFENDANT.
II. WHETHER THE DEFENDANT WAS DENIED A FUNDAMENTALLY FAIR TRIAL DUE TO THE CIRCUIT COURT'S MANIFEST ERROR IN ALLOWING TESTIMONY REGARDING ADMISSIONS WITH NO INDICIA OF RELIABILITY.
III. WHETHER THE CIRCUIT COURT ERRED IN DENYING THE DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR MISTRIAL BASED UPON THE PROSECUTION'S INTERJECTIONS OF OPINION IN THEIR OPENING STATEMENT.
IV. WHETHER THE CIRCUIT COURT ERRED IN DENYING DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR MISTRIAL WHERE THE DEFENDANT WAS BROUGHT INTO THE COURTROOM IN THE PRESENCE OF THE JURY WEARING LEG SHACKLES.
V. WHETHER THE CIRCUIT COURT ERRED IN DENYING DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR A MISTRIAL WHERE A WITNESS WAS IN CHAMBERS WHILE THE JUDGE RULED ON THE ADMISSIBILITY OF WITNESS TESTIMONY.
VI. WHETHER THE CIRCUIT COURT ERRED IN OVERRULING DEFENDANT'S OBJECTION TO ADMISSION OF DR. HAYNE'S TESTIMONY DERIVED FROM DR. WARD'S AUTOPSY REPORT ALLOWING THE STATE TO ELICIT INADMISSIBLE HEARSAY TESTIMONY.
VII. WHETHER THE CIRCUIT COURT ERRED IN ALLOWING EXPERT TESTIMONY THAT WAS BASED UPON PRIVILEGED COMMUNICATION BETWEEN DEFENDANT AND HIS WIFE.
VIII. WHETHER THE EVIDENCE IN THIS CASE IS SUFFICIENT TO PROVE THAT THE DEFENDANT IS GUILTY OF CAPITAL MURDER.

FACTS

¶ 2. On July 23, 1993, someone stabbed Catherine Diane Blevin in her Panola County, Mississippi home, resulting in her death two days later. Authorities suspected her son-in-law, Norris Crawford Alexander, whom she had kicked out of her home some two or three months earlier, along with her daughter, after she discovered marijuana growing in their bedroom. However, no evidence linking him to the crime was found until he made a series of statements.

¶ 3. During a trip to Memphis, Tennessee, Alexander told an acquaintance, Misty Dawn Carpenter, that he had stabbed his mother-in-law. Later, while he was in jail on unrelated charges, he told three other inmates about the killing. Thereafter, certain letters Alexander had written while in jail were obtained by authorities. The letters described how Alexander had killed Blevin. Additional facts necessary for a just determination of this appeal are fully detailed in the discussion of the following issues.

¶ 4. Following the State's case-in-chief, Alexander chose not to testify and did not present any other evidence. After a short deliberation, the jury convicted him of capital murder. The trial court subsequently found that Alexander was an habitual offender within the meaning of Miss.Code Ann. § 99-19-81 (1994). The State declined to seek the death penalty, and the trial court imposed a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.

DISCUSSION

I. WHETHER THE DEFENDANT WAS DENIED A FUNDAMENTALLY *415 FAIR TRIAL WHERE THE STATE WAS ALLOWED TO ELICIT INADMISSIBLE HEARSAY TESTIMONY WHICH BOLSTERED TESTIMONY REGARDING AN ADMISSION BY THE DEFENDANT.

¶ 5. Misty Dawn Carpenter was called by the State as a witness in its case-in-chief. Carpenter testified about a conversation she had with Alexander on August 13, 1993, as they drove to Memphis with her boyfriend, Jay Weaver. The pertinent testimony is as follows:

We was on our way to Memphis and Bugger [Alexander] looked over at Jay and was talking about a knife that had been thrown into some water. I don't know what water, but it was just some water. Jay told Bugger to shut up, to shut up, shut up. Bugger said, "What are you talking about?" And Jay told him just to shut his mouth. And I asked him what was going on. Bugger said, "I stabbed my mother-in-law. You didn't know that?" And I said, "Do what?" And Jay said, "Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut your mouth. Stop running your mouth, stop telling." And I said, "Why did you do that?" I think this is what, this is what was said: It was late at night, toward the morning hours. He went into his mother-in-law's house, and it was some pills or something there that he had wanted, and as he approached in the house she woke up. He put a pillow over her face, and he said he stabbed the bitch. And Jay was just steady telling him to shut up, shut up, shut up.

Immediately before the preceding testimony, Alexander objected "to any potential hearsay," but that objection was overruled. Alexander complains that Carpenter's statements as set forth above were inadmissible and prejudicial hearsay. Alexander is wrong.

¶ 6. Hearsay is defined as "a statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted." M.R.E. 801(c). We have held that, "[w]here the fact that a particular statement was made is of itself a relevant fact, regardless of the truth or falsity of such statement, the statement is admissible in evidence as an independently relevant fact." Jackson v. State, 527 So.2d 654, 656 (Miss.1988) (quoting Tolbert v. State, 407 So.2d 815, 821 (Miss.1981)). "Generally, words which accompany and give character to a transaction are not considered hearsay." Gayten v. State, 595 So.2d 409, 414 (Miss.1992). A statement is not considered hearsay if it is offered merely to show its effect on someone. Knight v. State, 601 So.2d 403, 406 (Miss.1992). In Knight, the trial court excluded as hearsay the statement of a witness that another person had warned the defendant that he had better leave the scene. We held that "[t]his statement, when offered for its effect on Knight, is not offered `to prove the truth of the matter asserted.' Rather it is offered for the fact that it was said. It does not fit the definition of hearsay." Id. at 406.

¶ 7. The testimony regarding Jay Weaver's repeated admonitions to "shut up" does not fit the definition of hearsay because there were no assertions of fact. For the same reason, Weaver's testimony regarding her own part of the conversation is also not hearsay. Carpenter testified that after Alexander began his revelations, she asked him 1) "what was going on"; 2) "Do what?"; and 3) "Why did you do that?" These three statements are questions which were not offered to prove the truth of any matter asserted and are therefore not hearsay.

¶ 8.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
759 So. 2d 411, 2000 WL 490903, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/alexander-v-state-miss-2000.