Graham v. State

967 So. 2d 670, 2007 WL 3076922
Court of Appeals of Mississippi·Decided October 23, 2007·No. 2006-KA-00518-COA·Published·Cited by 7 cases

Opinion

967 So.2d 670 (2007)

Charles Patrick GRAHAM, Appellant
v.
STATE of Mississippi, Appellee.

No. 2006-KA-00518-COA.

Court of Appeals of Mississippi.

October 23, 2007.

*672 Jonathan Michael Farris, attorney for appellant.

Office of the Attorney General by Jacob Ray, attorney for appellee.

*673 Before LEE, P.J., IRVING and CHANDLER, JJ.

CHANDLER, J., for the Court.

¶ 1. Charles Graham was convicted of two counts of the simple assault of a peace officer and sentenced to serve two consecutive five-year sentences in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Aggrieved, Graham appeals. He asserts the following issues:

I. The State's amendments to the indictments on the day of trial were substantive
II. The court should not have allowed the State's jury instruction S-1A
III. It was error for the court to refuse the defense's jury instructions D-4, D-5, D-6, D-7, and D-8
IV. The court erred by refusing to grant his motions for directed verdict and a peremptory instruction and by denying his motions for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict or a new trial
V. There was cumulative error sufficient for reversal.

¶ 2. Finding no error, we affirm.

FACTS

¶ 3. Charles Graham was released from the Forrest County Regional Jail on October 3, 2005. Between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m., approximately three hours after his release, he returned to the jail only to find the doors locked. Using the intercom, he demanded entrance so that he could obtain his property, which had been stored there while he was incarcerated. An officer informed Graham that the doors were locked for the shift change and that he should return after the shift change to get his property.

¶ 4. Instead of waiting, Graham proceeded to kick the door, thereby breaking the lock. He entered the facility and proceeded past the main desk of the Forrest County Sheriff's Department, ignoring Officer Orlando Dantzler's commands to stop. Graham continued through the first entry door of the jail before he was stopped at the second entry door, which was a metal mesh gate that was sealed with an electronic lock.

¶ 5. At this point Officer Dantzler and a corrections officer, John Simmons, approached Graham, who began to kick, hit, and threaten them. After being subdued, Graham was placed under arrest and taken into custody at the jail.

¶ 6. Graham was indicted by a Forrest County Grand Jury on two counts of simple assault of a peace officer. At a trial on March 14, 2006, the jury convicted Graham of both counts, and the court sentenced him to serve two consecutive five-year sentences.

ISSUES AND ANALYSIS

I. Amendment of indictment

¶ 7. Graham's first argument is that the court erred by allowing amendment to the indictments on the morning of the trial. He claims the amendments to the two indictments were substantive and that changing them on the day of trial prejudiced his defense.

¶ 8. Whether an indictment is defective is a question of law, and we review such questions of law under a de novo standard. Spears v. State, 942 So.2d 772, 773(¶ 5) (Miss.2006). It is permissible for a court to amend an indictment to correct a defect of form, but only the grand jury may correct a substantive defect. Id. at 774(¶ 6). An amendment is to form if it is immaterial to the merits of the case and does not prejudice the defense. Pool v. State, 764 So.2d 440, 443(¶ 10) (Miss.2000). To determine if an amendment prejudices *674 the defense, we ask if the defense is equally applicable after making the amendment. Id.

¶ 9. The original indictments charged that Graham "did unlawfully, feloniously and willfully attempt by physical menace to put Orlando Dantzler, in fear of imminent serious bodily harm by arming himself with a pen and bottle of bleach while kicking, hitting, and threatening Orlando Dantzler. . . ."[1] On the day of trial this was amended to delete the language "arming himself with a pen and bottle of bleach while." As amended, the indictment charged that Graham "did unlawfully, feloniously and willfully attempt by physical menace to put Orlando Dantzler, in fear of imminent serious bodily harm by kicking, hitting, and threatening Orlando Dantzler. . . ."

¶ 10. The State argued that the deleted phrase was merely a scrivener's error and had nothing to do with the charge. According to the State, there was another incident that did involve a pen and a bottle of bleach, and the indictment for that incident was typed at the same time. The phrase dealing with the pen and the bleach was supposed to be in the indictment for that charge, and it was mistakenly included in Graham's indictments. The judge heard this and found this to be reasonable. Clearly, the incident in the present case had nothing to do with a pen or a bottle of bleach, and the deleted language was immaterial to the merits of the case.

¶ 11. The provision, "arming himself with a pen and bottle of bleach while," is not substantive to the underlying charge of assaulting the officers with punches, kicks, and threats. Arguing that Graham was not armed with a pen or a bottle of bleach would not have been a defense at all under the original indictment, as such would not have negated the essential elements of punching, kicking, and threatening the officers. Graham's defenses to the charge were not affected by the deletion of the phrase; therefore, it was an immaterial amendment to the form of the indictment and not substantive.

¶ 12. Accordingly, we find that the trial court did not err in ruling that the amendments to Graham's indictments were to form and were not substantive. This issue is without merit.

II. Allowance of State's instruction

III. Refusal of defense's jury instructions

¶ 13. We will discuss these issues together as they involve an analysis of jury instructions.

¶ 14. Graham next complains of the trial court's allowance of the State jury instruction, S-1A, because it misstated the definition of "physical menace," which was a necessary element of the crime for which he was charged. Instruction S-1A reads as follows: "You are instructed on [phrase] `physical menace' as used in other instructions: a threat; or a declaration of a disposition to inflict immediate injury on another."

¶ 15. A defendant is entitled to have the trial court give jury instructions that present his theory of the case; however, the court may deny an instruction that misstates the law, is covered elsewhere in the instructions, or is not supported by the evidence. Ladnier v. State, 878 So.2d 926, 931(¶ 20) (Miss.2004). This Court does not review jury instructions in isolation, but it *675 will read them as a whole to determine whether the trial court properly instructed the jury. Milano v. State, 790 So.2d 179, 184(¶ 14) (Miss.2001). "When so read, if the instructions fairly announce the law of the case and create no injustice, no reversible error will be found." Id. (quoting Coleman v. State, 697 So.2d 777, 782 (Miss. 1997)).

¶ 16. To support Graham's claim that the definitio

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