Harris v. State

123 So. 3d 925, 2013 WL 5184529, 2013 Miss. App. LEXIS 607
Court of Appeals of Mississippi·Decided September 17, 2013·No. No. 2012-KA-00753-COA·Published·Cited by 4 cases

Opinion

BARNES, J.,

for the Court:

¶ 1. In March 2011, a Rankin County grand jury returned a five-count indictment against Charles Harris for felonious child abuse of a nine-month old, Sue Brown,1 under Mississippi Code Annotated section 97-5-39 (Rev.2006). The counts included breaking her left arm (Count I), breaking her right arm (Count II), burning her fingers (Count III), burning her lips and mouth (Count IV), and striking her chest causing “bilateral pneumothoraces”2 (Count V). A jury convicted Harris on Count III, but was unable to reach a verdict regarding the other counts, resulting in a mistrial for those counts. The trial court sentenced him to thirty years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC), with eight years suspended and five years of supervised probation. Harris now appeals, raising three issues. He argues a mistrial should have been declared when the prosecution played a video recording to the jury. The video contained Harris’s alleged exercise of his post-Miranda3 right to an attorney during a custodial interview. He also claims the trial court erred in refusing a lesser-offense jury instruction on simple assault and a lesser-included-offense jury instruction on misdemeanor child abuse. Finally, he argues the verdict is against the weight of the evidence. Finding no error, we affirm.

STATEMENT OF FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶ 2. In March 2009, Sue, Carrie Cran-dle’s nine-month-old daughter, suffered injuries after a series of “accidents” while under the care of her nineteen-year-old babysitter, Harris. Crandle and the baby’s father, George Brown, had been living together in Jackson, Mississippi, when Sue was born, but three weeks after her birth, George relapsed into drug addiction. Crandle left Jackson and took Sue and her four-year-old half-brother to Leakesville, Mississippi, where some relatives live. She stayed with her best friend and received food stamps. After six weeks, Brown found a place for Crandle and the children to live in Florence, Mississippi, where they moved in August 2008. Through the WIN Job Center, Crandle [929] obtained a job at a hotel in Brandon, Mississippi, as a front desk clerk, where she worked the night shift most of the time.

¶ 3. When issues arose with the childcare arrangements Crandle had initially made with friends and family, she began looking at babysitting services. She searched websites and interviewed a couple of individuals. Harris, whom Crandle had met at a church in Pearl, Mississippi, had offered to watch her children, but she initially declined his offer. Crandle had known him for three or four months. Having difficulty finding a babysitter, though, Crandle decided to contact Harris. Harris lived in a house with his grandparents, sister, uncle, uncle’s girlfriend, and uncle’s three children. Crandle set up a meeting to inspect the house and meet Harris’s family. After the meeting, Cran-dle felt it would be “okay” to have her children cared for by Harris at his home. At first, Crandle sent only her son, but after Harris did “fine” with him, she also started leaving Sue. At the time, Sue was neither walking nor crawling.

¶ 4. On March 6, 2009, Crandle received a text message from Harris, stating he thought Sue’s arm might be broken. Harris then called Crandle and explained Sue had been “fussy.” When he was changing her diaper, she rolled off the bed and landed on a walking cane on the floor. Harris stated he then picked Sue up and put her in his bed, where she cried a bit and then went to sleep.

¶ 5. Crandle called Harris’s grandmother to see “what was going on.” After speaking with the grandmother, Crandle decided to leave work early and take Sue to River Oaks Hospital in Flowood, Mississippi. In the emergency room, Sue’s left and right arms were x-rayed. Physicians confirmed Sue’s left arm was broken. While at the hospital, Crandle also met with a social worker due to the nature of Sue’s injury and her age. At this point, Crandle did not suspect Harris of abuse.

¶ 6. On March 22, 2009, Crandle left work at 11:00 p.m. to pick up her children from Harris’s house. She found Sue sitting on Harris’s bed and noticed a bandage on Sue’s right middle finger. Harris explained to Crandle that Sue had a blister on her finger and had chewed it off. Crandle also noticed Sue’s mouth had a red, blistery rash on it, and there were blisters on three fingers of her other hand. Harris claimed ignorance about what happened to Sue’s fingers.

¶ 7. Crandle immediately took Sue to the Crossgates River Oaks Hospital emergency room in Brandon. Sue’s fingers were treated, and it was recommended Crandle follow up with Sue’s pediatrician, Dr. Phyllis Hightower. The next day, Dr. Bettie Knight saw Sue because Dr. Hightower was out. She informed Crandle that Sue had second-degree burns on her fingers caused from heat.

¶ 8. On March 24, 2009, Crandle took Sue to the Mississippi Sports Medicine Center for a follow up visit for Sue’s broken arm. Crandle then took Sue back to Dr. Hightower’s office to change the bandages on Sue’s fingers. But when Dr. Hightower took Sue from Crandle’s arms to examine her, Sue emitted “a high-pitched cry ... in obvious discomfort” as the physician held Sue around her trunk. Concerned about possible rib fractures, Dr. Hightower ordered a full skeletal survey of Sue at Rankin General Hospital’s emergency room. Crandle proceeded to the hospital with Sue where the x-ray was performed. Physicians discovered Sue had additional injuries — her right arm was also broken, and there were issues with her lungs. Sue was taken by ambulance to the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC), where she had to have emergency surgery due to her lung injuries. [930] Sue was in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) for four days and in the hospital for six days.

¶ 9. On March 26, 2009, Officer Sheila Tucker, a juvenile investigator in the Rankin County Sheriffs Office, interviewed Harris. A video recording of the interview was taken. Initially, Harris denied knowing what happened to Sue, and suggested that maybe Sue’s father injured her, even though Sue had not been around her father lately. Then, he proposed that the injuries occurred when he was asleep, or his cousins might have burned Sue’s fingers. Later, he suggested a lamp might have caused the burns. Toward the end of the interview, he admitted that the burned fingers and one broken arm occurred during his care. But, he maintained that he did not know how Sue’s lungs became collapsed. After being advised of his Miranda rights, Harris signed a waiver and, at the end of the interview, gave a written statement.4

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Harris v. State, 123 So. 3d 925, 2013 WL 5184529, 2013 Miss. App. LEXIS 607 (Mich. Ct. App. 2013).

123 So. 3d 925 (Harris v. State) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Kadedria Hampton v. State of Mississippi
Mississippi Supreme Court, 2021
Cameron Dwayne May v. State of Mississippi
267 So. 3d 803 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2018)