Clingan v. State

404 So. 2d 1386
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 21, 1981
Docket52880
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 404 So. 2d 1386 (Clingan 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
Clingan v. State, 404 So. 2d 1386 (Mich. 1981).

Opinion

404 So.2d 1386 (1981)

Phillip CLINGAN
v.
STATE of Mississippi.

No. 52880.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

October 21, 1981.

Michael G. Thorne, Tupelo, for appellant.

Bill Allain, Atty. Gen. by Wayne Snuggs, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

Before SMITH, P.J., and WALKER and BOWLING, JJ.

*1387 BOWLING, Justice, for the Court:

Appellant was indicted in the Circuit Court of Lee County for the crime of murder. The jury returned a verdict of manslaughter and appellant was sentenced to serve a term of twenty years with the Mississippi Department of Corrections. The conviction was for the death of his wife Elizabeth Clingan. Appellant on this appeal assigns two errors; namely:

I. THE COURT ERRED IN OVERRULING APPELLANT'S MOTION FOR A DIRECTED VERDICT TO WHICH THE APPELLANT WAS ENTITLED UNDER THE "WEATHERSBY RULE."
II. THE COURT ERRED IN RULING THAT THE TESTIMONY OF THE EXPERT WITNESS A QUALIFIED PSYCHIATRIST, TO SHOW THE STATE OF MIND AND THE PROBABILITY OF PSYCHOGENIC SHOCK OF THE APPELLANT AFTER THE DEATH OF THE VICTIM COULD NOT BE ADMITTED INTO EVIDENCE.

Appellant and his deceased wife had been married approximately seven years prior to her death on Sunday, April 28, 1980. They had one small child. Most of the facts surrounding the relationship of the Clingans is undisputed and most of the facts surrounding the death of Mrs. Clingan and subsequent events were supplied by appellant. Sometime prior to Mrs. Clingan's death, she correctly suspicioned that appellant was seeing another woman. For several weeks prior to her death Mrs. Clingan had been staying at her mother's home with her child. She and appellant were keeping in contact in an effort toward reconciliation. On April 28, 1980, the deceased went to the home of the parties at about 11:30 a.m. and stayed until about 2 p.m. During this time the couple had marital relations. Appellant at the trial related what occurred after his wife departed the home.

Appellant received a telephone call from his girlfriend requesting that he go for a ride. Appellant agreed and they met at a convenience store parking lot. Appellant parked his car, got in the car with his girlfriend, and they rode to a lake and returned. During the course of this ride, appellant and his girlfriend together smoked one marijuana cigarette.

In the meantime, Mrs. Clingan had seen her husband's car and was waiting for him to return. Upon driving toward his car, appellant saw Mrs. Clingan and had his girlfriend drive him to another friend's house who returned appellant to his car. The deceased was not there at that time.

Appellant then went to the apartment where they lived, and upon entering, found *1388 his wife standing there with a shotgun. Appellant grabbed the barrel of the gun and took it away from his wife, pushing her to the floor on her back. Appellant had full control of the gun. Appellant testified he began to lecture his wife about gun safety and pointing a gun at someone. In the meantime the deceased had retreated to the first and second steps of the stairway leading to the second floor of the apartment. Appellant testified his wife then grabbed the gun barrel and pulled it down and since the safety was off the gun, his finger struck the trigger causing the fatal shot. According to the pathologist, the shot entered the body of the deceased at the lower part of the neck and traveled downward at about a 45 degree angle. He could not tell whether the barrel of the gun was very close to the deceased or three or four feet away. The deceased fell, according to appellant, and in falling turned around and landed on her back, just at the foot of the stairway. He determined that she was dead.

Appellant testified he sat on the stairway and cried for some two to three hours. He then went to the home of his mother-in-law to visit his son for a very short time and returned to the apartment. According to him, he sat on the couch trying to think. He called his mother-in-law and asked her to put the child to bed as his wife had gone to get supper and would return home later. Appellant testified he spent the night on the couch in the same room where his wife's body was lying.

The next morning appellant called the bank where his wife worked and advised them that she would not be at work that day. He also attempted to persuade the deceased's brother to make excuses to his mother as to why the deceased would not meet her for lunch. He then sat around the apartment until noon, after which he covered his wife's body with a blanket, so that he would not have to keep looking at her. He then called his girlfriend and asked her to come get him so that they could drive around and get something to eat.

After he was taken back to the apartment, he sat around some more. He then made an effort, according to him, to get drunk. His liquor supply was not sufficient, so he started to the liquor store for some more whiskey and ran out of gas. He called his girlfriend to bring him some gas, which she did. While gasoline was being put in appellant's car, his wife's brother came by and asked him if he had seen his sister. Appellant told the brother-in-law that he had not seen her.

On neither occasion with this girlfriend after his wife's death did he mention this fact to her.

Later that evening the appellant's brother-in-law, Richard, came to appellant's apartment, knocked on the door and hollered but received no response. He then went to the back door where again he received no response. Being suspicious that something was wrong, the brother-in-law took out a window pane and entered the back door. Upon entering the apartment, he was met by appellant with a gun.

After discussing the situation, appellant placed the gun on the floor. At that time the appellant told Richard his sister had killed herself. The brother-in-law, after taking the telephone off the wall, went to another house and called the police. The police arrived shortly thereafter and discovered the body of deceased.

After his brother-in-law left appellant testified he took the gun and drove to Alabama where he stopped on the Buttahatchie River Bridge, destroyed the gun, and threw the remains into the river. Appellant then drove to Plantersville where he briefly visited a friend, then drove up the Natchez Trace, and returned to Tupelo where he spent the night in a motel. The next day he went to Birmingham, Alabama.

Appellant stayed in Birmingham two weeks without letting anyone in Mississippi know where he was. Appellant took a bus back to Tupelo and went to his mother's trailer home near Tupelo. He was informed by his mother that her home was being watched by law enforcement officials. Appellant went to the woods and spent the night there. The next day he caught a ride to Memphis, Tennessee. The day after that he called his mother and told her he would *1389 give himself up to the police chief, if he would meet him. The two met at the Tennessee-Mississippi line, where the police chief took appellant into custody.

Appellant's testimony was that he was an experienced handler of guns and had taught his wife how to handle firearms. The gun in question is what is known as a "pump" .12 gauge gun. It was appellant's testimony that after he took the gun from his wife, she told him it was unloaded, although appellant's testimony was he kept it loaded at the apartment.

DID THE COURT ERR IN REFUSING A DIRECTED VERDICT UNDER THE

WEATHERSBY RULE?

There have been many cases regarding the defense of the so-called "Weathersby Rule." This was set out in Weathersby v.

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Bluebook (online)
404 So. 2d 1386, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/clingan-v-state-miss-1981.