Hayes v. State

168 So. 3d 1065, 2013 WL 5912090, 2013 Miss. App. LEXIS 744
CourtCourt of Appeals of Mississippi
DecidedNovember 5, 2013
DocketNo. 2012-KA-00311-COA
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 168 So. 3d 1065 (Hayes v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Mississippi primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hayes v. State, 168 So. 3d 1065, 2013 WL 5912090, 2013 Miss. App. LEXIS 744 (Mich. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

FAIR, J.,

for the Court:

¶ 1. Richard Barnes was shot and killed outside a party in rural Lawrence County, Mississippi. His brother, Ricardo Barnes, cousin, Shamel Lewis, and friend Murphy Peyton were also shot but survived. Prosecution witnesses identified five shooters and two other participants. Four of these were brought to trial together — Jason Davis, Leon Hayes, April Garner, and Charles Ford. They were jointly indicted on charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and three counts of aggravated assault — one for each surviving victim. All the defendants were acquitted of murder. Davis was convicted of all the remaining counts. Hayes was convicted of [1069]*1069conspiracy and one count of aggravated assault. Garner was convicted of conspiracy. The jury could not reach a verdict on Ford’s conspiracy charge.1 Hayes, Garner, and Ford were acquitted of the remaining charges.

¶ 2. Davis, Hayes, and Garner’s appeal is now before this Court. We find no merit to any of their issues, so we affirm all of the convictions and sentences.

FACTS

¶ 3. The chain of events leading up to the shootings began when Bryan Cauthen, a relative of some of the defendants, allegedly insulted and struck Murphy Peyton’s sister. Peyton and Ricardo Barnes went to Andy’s, a local convenience store, and met Cauthen, Jason Davis, and Kabaska Polk. The two groups argued until the store owner called the police, when they left. During the argument Jason Davis threatened Barnes and Peyton by saying “we’ll see you later.”

¶ 4. A few days later, the night of November 7, 2008, Ricardo Barnes encountered Bryan Cauthen and Jason and Joel Davis at Leo’s, a club. Barnes heard someone say, “we got you now,” and the trio “jumped” Barnes. As Barnes wrestled with his assailants, they punched and kicked him. Jason Davis held something sharp to Barnes’s neck, which cut him. Barnes overheard someone say Jason had a gun, but he never saw what it was. The fight broke up when Barnes’s friends interceded, and Jason again said “we’ll get you later.”

¶ 5. Barnes testified that he did not understand why Cauthen and the Davises still wanted to hurt him, and he wanted to clear it up with them. So Barnes called his brother, Richard, and they, along with Lewis and Peyton, went back to Leo’s in Richard’s car, a Toyota. The police were there because of the fight, however, so they went to a “party” at “Rose Hill,” an establishment in rural Lawrence County that consisted of two mobile homes arranged in an “L” shape with a burn barrel between them.2 Alcohol was sold, loud music was playing, and there was a pool table inside one of the trailers. Visitors parked their vehicles on the sides of the narrow road. There was a single security light illuminating the area inside the “L.”

¶ 6. When the Barneses arrived, Garner was blocking the road with her vehicle. Richard stopped his Toyota in the middle of the road. He asked Garner to move,’ and she refused. The Barnes group saw a black Tahoe, which they recognized. The Barneses, Lewis, and Peyton got out and approached the Tahoe.3 Richard Barnes knocked on the driver’s window, but Ricardo became alarmed when he saw Bryan Cauthen crawling to the back of the vehicle. Richard asked Cauthen to come out, but Cauthen came up with a gun and shot Richard through one of the rear side windows. Richard went down, and Ricardo, Lewis, and Peyton fled back into Richard’s Toyota. Both Lewis and then Peyton tried to drive it away, but neither was able to get the vehicle into gear. As the victims sat immobile, Cauthen was joined by Kabaska Polk and Joel and Jason Davis, [1070]*1070who were all armed and began firing into the Toyota.

¶ 7. Eventually, Ricardo, Lewis, and Peyton decided to flee on foot. They jumped out when they believed their assailants were reloading and ran in different directions. Leon Hayes, who had been standing behind a pine tree on the side of the road, shot Peyton with a shotgun'when he came out of the car. Though each was hit by shot or bullets, Ricardo, Lewis, and Peyton all made it into the woods, and they were able to evade their pursuers in the darkness. At some point, Cauthen (and possibly Joel and Jason Davis) stood over Richard Barnes’s body and fired into it repeatedly, as Cauthen asked Richard when he was going to die. After his attackers gave up the chase and fled, Ricardo returned to check on Richard.4 The first responder to the scene found Ricardo lying over his brother’s body.

¶ 8. After he escaped, Peyton hid in the bushes behind a nearby house. Sometime later, April Garner and her mother drove up in the same vehicle Garner had been driving at the time of the shooting. Pey-ton believed they saw him, and Garner stepped out from the passenger’s side. Garner called for Peyton to come out and asked aloud where he had gone. She used profane language Peyton interpreted as threatening, and Peyton remained hidden until they left.

¶ 9. Shamel Lewis, the fourth victim, did not testify at the trial, but his injuries were described by other witnesses.

¶ 10. Eric Smith, a witness, recounted the assailants being armed as follows: “Bryan had a handgun. Jason had a handgun. Leon had a shotgun. Charles had a shotgun. Kabaska had a shotgun. And Joel had an AK(-47).” Investigators found evidence of at least three weapons having been fired: spent casings from an AK-47-type rifle, a hull from a 12-gauge shotgun shell, and a wadding from a .410 shotgun shell. None of the guns were ever recovered, however. Richard Barnes, the deceased, was found to have had a .25-caliber handgun in his pocket, but there was no evidence introduced at trial that it played any role in the incident.

¶ 11. Cauthen pled guilty to manslaughter, and Kabaska Polk pled guilty to accessory after the fact. Some of the defendants’ theories of the case were that Cauthen and Polk were solely responsible for the shooting. Joel Davis was not tried because he was being held on other charges in Louisiana.

¶ 12. Three of the four defendants were convicted of at least one count, as we have detailed above. Jason Davis was sentenced on each of his four counts to twenty years’ imprisonment, with fifteen to serve and five years of post-release supervision. His aggravated assault sentences were ordered to run concurrently to each other, but consecutively to the conspiracy sentence. Garner and Hayes received the same sentence as Davis for each of their convictions, with Hayes’s two sentences to be served consecutively.

DISCUSSION

¶ 13. Before us are three of the defendants from the joint trial. Each defendant raises distinct issues, but we shall discuss them together when appropriate.

1. Weight of the Evidence — Hayes

¶ 14. Hayes contends his convictions for conspiracy and aggravated as[1071]*1071sault were against the overwhelming weight of the evidence. A challenge to the weight of the evidence will be successful only when the verdict “is so contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence that to allow it to stand would sanction an unconscionable injustice.” Bush v. State, 895 So.2d 886, 844 (¶ 18) (Miss.2005). The evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, and a new trial should be granted “only in exceptional cases in which the evidence preponderates heavily against the verdict.” Id.

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168 So. 3d 1065, 2013 WL 5912090, 2013 Miss. App. LEXIS 744, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hayes-v-state-missctapp-2013.